While up north this weekend, I got a chance to try a style of hunting we [freshwater guys] don't get to very often.
The wind picked up on Saturday night, and I decided to get out for a bit of windsurfing. While skipping across the lake, a school of shad popped out of the water right in front of my board. I thought that I had been the cause, but noticed on my return trip that the same school jumped again when I was more than 100 feet from them. I had read reports of large crappies hunting shad in open water from various fishing websites, but I never saw this.
So, I sailed back to shore, threw on my gear, and swam my butt off in the direction of the school (it was moving around obviously, but staying near the deep hole).
When I got there, I saw what I was looking for - a school of 14-16" slabs terroizing the shad. The were hanging at 15 feet or so - just out of sight, and making runs at the shad - causing them to jump. I managed to pluck off 7 of them before I lost track of the school and couldn't find it again. Vis was decent, but it was very difficult to string fish in a 15mph wind, all while trying to stay on the shad. No waves would have made it possible to see them jumping. But, I'm not complaining - I wouldn't want to take more of those pigs than we could eat anyway; they were almost too pretty to fire on.
The fillets were so big I had to cut them up, so they'd cook thoroughly. A kitchen full of people scarffed plate after plate until they were gone.
The wind picked up on Saturday night, and I decided to get out for a bit of windsurfing. While skipping across the lake, a school of shad popped out of the water right in front of my board. I thought that I had been the cause, but noticed on my return trip that the same school jumped again when I was more than 100 feet from them. I had read reports of large crappies hunting shad in open water from various fishing websites, but I never saw this.
So, I sailed back to shore, threw on my gear, and swam my butt off in the direction of the school (it was moving around obviously, but staying near the deep hole).
When I got there, I saw what I was looking for - a school of 14-16" slabs terroizing the shad. The were hanging at 15 feet or so - just out of sight, and making runs at the shad - causing them to jump. I managed to pluck off 7 of them before I lost track of the school and couldn't find it again. Vis was decent, but it was very difficult to string fish in a 15mph wind, all while trying to stay on the shad. No waves would have made it possible to see them jumping. But, I'm not complaining - I wouldn't want to take more of those pigs than we could eat anyway; they were almost too pretty to fire on.
The fillets were so big I had to cut them up, so they'd cook thoroughly. A kitchen full of people scarffed plate after plate until they were gone.
