Cold Front Bites

 

    Cold front lock-jaw is real. When high pressure fronts bring in bluebird skies and cold, heavy winds, fish seem to just shut down and stop feeding. You can still catch them, but the methods often have to be very finesse. For bass guys, these are drop shot conditions. However, in my home river, the shad that run up every spring don't eat. Instead, they merely smack flutterspoons and shad darts out of pure aggression, snapping at something shiny and bright that comes across their face and aggravates them. So on a day with these conditions in early April, I opted to shad fish. 

    Arriving at my spot, the first thing that I noticed was how the wind was ripping. Heavy gusts from the North was stirring up the water, creating ripples all across the surface. I wasn't sure if I could present a dart through the current properly given the conditions. My concerns were immediately dispelled when a nice roe grabbed my dart on the third swing. 

    For the next hour, I had a steady pick of shad on darts. What's interesting is that I was using a double dart rig, with one chartreuse and one orange, and very single fish hit the orange. There's a big debate amongst fisherman on whether lure or fly color matters. Generally, I don't think it does in most circumstances, but with fish that rely so heavily on seeing what you're presenting, I'm not so sure.

    I managed to pull a half-dozen of them from one current seam before the bite died. Shad bites come in waves, and I managed run into one immediately before it eventually petered out as the fish all came through the run, making a mad dash for the next current break where they could rest. After the bite died, I got a text from my friend and biggest shad fan I know, Ernie, saying he was at a spot further south. I met him there, and he proceeded to school me, pulling three nice fish out of a run in a short amount of time while all I got was one buck that spat the hook. 

    Quickly after that however, the bite shut down there too. We headed even further south to find some more willing fish, but the shad seemed to be done for the day. We did, however, catch a mess of largemouth and crappies from a back creek on small swimbaits and trout jigs. 

    The cobra-chickens are nesting, the hydrilla is forming, and the tree frogs are a' croaking. It's spring now folks, and it's shaping up to be a good one. Get out there and fish, folks. 

Cheers, fishy people.