1st Shad of 2012 - 3rd Annual Shad & Crappie Derby

American and Hickory shad are an anadromous species, meaning it spends most of its life in the sea and returns to fresh water to spawn. Shad enter the St. Johns River in late December and January to spawn, and the spawning will last until early April sometimes.
With that said, the 3rd Annual Shad & Crappie Derby is open. This year the derby has been extended an extra month too. It opened on December 17, 2011 and lasts through March 17, 2012. My friend David and I have already got in on the shad action. He's the only guy I know who targets shad as much as I do, and he is more experienced so I've learned alot from him. Shad aren't good to eat, we just love catching them. Plus the added chance of winning some prizes in the derby is cool too.

This morning was my first visit to Mullet Lake Park river bank since May 2011. I brought 3 poles with me (two catfishing rods and a jigging rod for shad). The hike was a little wet and the grass is still really tall. The old pathway to the bank has grown in so it was more difficult to find my way out there. When I finially made it out I immediately started jigging. About 20 minutes later I caught a decent 11" Crappie. And not long after that my friend David showed up. It was cool to hangout with him again. The shad were hard to find but probably because it's still early in the season. It will be another couple weeks before they are thick in our area. David caught the first shad of the day that was about 11". Then about noon I caught my first shad of the year that was approx 11.75". David says those are the males, but the females get bigger. Those are the ones we're after. The females usually average 16-18" long.

During the day I had good bites on my catfishing rod too. I used old shrimp and chunks of shad, with a piece of cut mullet mixed in there. The shrimp was getting good bites but it was hard to stay on the hook. So I switched over to cut shad and caught a big 6 LB 3 OZ Channel Catfish. I didn't bring very much shad with me so switched over to a piece of cut mullet. After some soaking I got another Channel Catfish that was about 1 LB that was let go to grow some more.

All together I caught 2 catfish, a crappie and a shad. Good day on the water!