I brought Pat along to net shad this morning, as I thought he’d really like the experience.  I spoiled him, netting over 800 shad in my first throw.  I could barely lift my net out of the water!!  We culled the largest, keeping about 130 for the trip and returned the rest to continue their spawning.  Having Pat aboard for the bait netting allowed us to get right on the fish, whereas I’d normally return to the dock to await my client’s arrival.

We headed out to the fishing grounds and found whitecaps already well-developed.  A stiff WNW wind was pushing the water pretty good, but the 36 volt trolling motor really pulled her weight today, keeping us dead on over the fish we found on sonar in 31-35 feet.

Our first stop was our longest and most productive, giving up 40 of our 54 fish in the first 2.5 hours of fishing.  Now, catch this — of those 40 fish, exactly 38 were keeper (18+ inch) hybrid, with several going 4.5 to 4.75 pounds on a certified scale.  The wind and the large baits really did the trick today.

Around 9:45, the wind shifted a bit more northerly and we got some gusts above 25mph and had to come off our area — waves were occasionally breaking over the bow and twice we were blown off our spot as the wind overpowered the trolling motor.  We fished in the lee of the north shore for a while, catching a few white bass, catfish and smallmouth, but, as soon as it looked approachable, went right back out in the blow for the final hour, adding several more keeper hybrid our final count.