American Shad Run – St. Johns River

Everywhere that I’ve lived in my life, I was at least 30 minutes away from the St. Johns River and I keep hearing about the Shad run that takes part every Winter and Spring but I’ve never went out and tried catching them until recently. My buddy Dominic Agostini invited me to join him on his new and improved Micro Skiff that he’s been working on for a while now. You may have seen it in one of my previous posts called Micro Skiff = Micro Tarpon. Well, since then he has added a poling platform by BT’s Welding and pushpole holders from Renzetti.

If you ask me one thing about Shad, I will probably scratch my head and say “huh?” This experience was all new to me, so I just sat quietly and took notes while Dominic explained everything there is to know about the American Shad.

Once we launched the skiff and headed north through the windy creeks, It came back to me how pristine this part of Florida was. The scenery and all of the wildlife put me in a whole new world as if I was going on an African Safari Tour. What a great time to break out the Nikon DSLR and the long lens for a photography session while we were on the way to the fishing spot.






Once we came off plane, we immediately saw some flipping on the waters surface. It was Shad feeding on small minnows that were flowing in the current. It didn’t take long until Dominic hooked into the first fish of the day on his 3wt.



Then it was my turn on deck while Dominic was armed with the camera to capture some jump shots.


We caught several Shad each along with some pretty impressive Bluegill that put up a good fight.


After about an hour of catching Shad and Bluegill, we decided to just go joy riding and enjoy the great scenery that the St. Johns River has to offer.









I think I might started taking advantage of living close to the St. Johns River and make more trips out there to enjoy the great fishery and amazing scenery.

-Capt. Willy Le
321-303-7805
nativeflycharters@gmail.com

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