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Favorite flies for shad?

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Striperknight

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Back in the day when we had a prolific Shad Run in a couple rivers the go to fly for me was always tied on a "Gold" hook in a size 4 or 2.  It was a very tied with Magenta fluorescent yarn and silver tinsel. Th fly was tied leaving a short tail of yarn and then wrapped in a ball at the bend of the hook and tied down with thread and and then the silver tinsel  tied in front of the ball, lay the yard along the shank and tied down at the front of the hook and then wrap the tinsel forward to cover the shank and tie off and then wrap another ball of yarn behind the eye and tie off. and your done.  The finished fly should have a small tail with two ball of yarn with silver tinsel between them. It was a killer fly.

The Tug Is The Drug

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One of my mentors (Jack Cooper) who was a production tyer showed me how to tie effective shad flies for fishing below the Great Stone Dam on the Merrimack River.  A size 4 Eagle Claw Gold hook wrapped with the appropriate amount of copper wire to get it right on the bottom and a red plastic bead on the tippet at the tie in point.  I'd have a few already tied along with a box of gold hooks and a coil of copper wire.  If you weren't hanging up on the bottom you weren't catching shad.  We would actually build the fly while standing knee deep in the fast current.

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The good thing about shad flies is they can be very simple. Standard small steelhead patterns, bonefish, small clousers in bright colors, and epoxy minnows will all work as will a simple bead-and-hook or yarn fly. You just need to get it down deep.

 

-bd

Pfantum Pfishah

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The good thing about shad flies is they can be very simple. Standard small steelhead patterns, bonefish, small clousers in bright colors, and epoxy minnows will all work as will a simple bead-and-hook or yarn fly. You just need to get it down deep.

 

-bd

That's more or less in line of what I use...I typically use a size 4 or 6 hook (I use saltwater hooks since I have a few in that size that I normally would not use otherwise). And my patterns are usually bead head (sometimes small clouser eyes) in bright colors with a wing that barely extends past the bend of the hook...I tie some in chartrueuse and some in bright pink (the chartrueses ones usually have a bright pink bead head)

 

They take a minute or so to tie - will post pics once I get home tonight

Edited by albacized
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