17" American Shad, Crappie & Catfish

With the shad run nearing it's end, I wanted to see how they were biting today and possibly catch a few crappie. Alot of clouds in the sky with a chance of rain in the forecast, but all we got was a slight sprinkle for a few minutes. When I arrived I noticed some vultures next to the river bank so I knew something dead was laying there. When I looked it was a BIG fat catfish, it to have been about 20lb. It was really fat and I don't know what happened to it. It's likely someone caught it and didn't release it properly. Such a shame to see a big fish like that fall victim to careless fishermen.

I used 1/8th oz jigheads today for casting distance and to stay near the bottom. A couple boats were trolling back and forth, but only catching small crappie. The bite was slow, which kinda surprises me with the upcoming cold front this weekend. My friend David came out for a little while but didn't have any luck. All my fish today came between 10am-noon, but after noon the bite stopped with no fish.

First fish I hooked into was a small shad but it got off close to the bank so it doesn't count towards my season total. My next fish was a small crappie on a black/chartreuse tail Strike King Slab Hammer grub. It was too small to keep so it was released. Next was a 17" American Shad caught on a pink/chartreuse tail Strike King Slab Hammer grub. This is one of the longer shad I've caught this year but it looked skinny so maybe she already laid her eggs. I already have enough frozen shad in the freezer anyway so this one was released after measuring the length. Next and final fish for the day was a 1-2 lb catfish that I had accidently snagged on the tail. When I first felt the fish on my line I really thought it was a big shad. It pulled hard but I did notice the vigorous "shaking" of the line that catfish normally do when they know they're hooked. I removed the hook from it's tail and let it go. The wound wasn't too bad so the fish should be okay. Catfish are pretty resilient anyway.

Sorry no pictures today. I wasn't trying to keep anymore fish since I already have that flounder from yesterday. But with the 17" shad I caught today, my season total is now 27! I don't know if I'll break the 30-mark since this is usually when the shad fishing really slows down at Mullet Lake. Can't complain though, last year I only caught 10 shad and this year I almost tripled that amount.