Are the shad still there?

[striperdude]

Was planning on going fishing on Friday and wondered if anyone has netted any shad recently. I know from past experience that eventually the shad just disappear from the shallows around this time.
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[cvcrash]

they are still there. we went out on Monday and it took awhile, but we got plenty. There were a lot of boats out that day so think they were doing good. We got 6 in a couple hours with a late start, the largest coming in at just over three. Wind was wicked that day so it made it tough to get on a school of them.

Anyone know what kind of fish this is? Got this while netting shad. [inline 001.JPG]
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[Erawk]

It's a mature gizzard shad.
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[ihuntforfish]

I've seen a lot of strange things at Lake Mead, but the strangest one happened in the Wash about a month ago now.
I had netted a bucket of gizzard shad, and was introducing my Utah buddy to fishing live shad for striper. I was trolling a shad about 75' behind me along that step at the mouth of the wash where it drops from about ~3 feet to ~10. I was about to make a u-turn, so I started burning in my shad in, when BAM, fish on.
So start fighting this thing (fought like an average striper), get it up to the boat, grab my boga, and what the hell do I see? One of those big 20" gizzard shad. "Oh dang I snagged a gizzard shad," I thought. As i get it next to the boat i see something that made my head explode: the hook was IN the shads mouth--not near it, not superficially in it, but UP IN that little stinky branch polisher. Me and the boaters beside us were laughing, blown away.
So I can only speculate what happened: I'm ruling out predation completely because gizzard shad, even adults, simply don't prey on other fish. That leaves scenario A: I happened to hit the craziest, most insanely miniscule odds of snagging this fish at the perfect angle to where the hook actually made itself into it's mouth. Then scenario B, which is that the mature gizzard shad was trying to interact with the shad on my hook--territorial behavior by nipping at the shad maybe? I dragged my shad through a school of mixed size gizzard shad and they began to school with my shad? No clue. Mind blown.
So that's that, up there on my top 5 weird Mead experiences is this one.
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[toadie_79]

I had a similar experience but it was with a lip less crankbait. It was last year and I was fishing from shore. I saw a bunch of grebes follow a school of shad into the cove I was fishing. So I switched to the crankbait and started casting around. Third cast and wham, I thought I hooked a average size Striper too. Reel the sucker in, and low and behold it's a huge gizzard shad with my crankbait in its mouth. Laugh my arse off. I attached a pic of it below for your viewing pleasure.
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[iamthesmf]

[inline "18 inch Gizzard.jpg"]

This is a mature Gizzard Shad.
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[fishrdan]

I wonder if the stripers in Mead could choke down that big ol' shad, probably take a 40-50#er, but I don't think it's out of question. I caught a 40# striper at Willow that had a 3# carp jammed down it's gullet, I actually thought the carp's tail was some weeds sticking out of the striper's mouth, until daylight and I got a closer look.


Oh yeah, for that big gizzard CV netted, If I had a heavy rod (river rod) along with me, I would have sent that shad back down with a couple 4/0 trebles to see if anyone down there wanted to play. Probably wouldn't have caught anything with it, but if you did... HANG ON!

(40# striper vs 3# carp pic attached)
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[iamthesmf]

[inline greg-myerson-potential-record-head.jpg]

[size 5]81.88 lbs Striped Bass caught by Gregg Myerson. [/size]
[size 5]
[/size]
[#000000][size 3]Long and skinny they can eat (trout, carp and sucker fish) but tall and round not so much (big gizzard shad)[/size][/#000000]

[#000000]A typical striper can eat another fish 2/3's of it's body length. [/#000000]
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[fishrdan]

Wholly smokes! I hadn't seen that fish before, a true monster.

The good news for Mead is that bigger forage should grow bigger stripers, much like Willow but not dependent on the (non-existent) weekly feedings by the hatchery. Wouldn't it be awesome if it got to the point where the stripers in Mead were readily feeding on those huge gizzards! Much like the stories I have heard of back int he 70's when people were catching 20# stripers out of Mead on a regular basis....
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[ihuntforfish]

LMAO!!! It looks so mean with that crank in its mouth--this picture is worth a million laughs dude. I wish I could have had a picture, It turned on me and got free while I was holding the line laughing
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[ihuntforfish]

that picture man...........made me so damn happy that is one hell of an experience.
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