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American Shad
Alosa sapidissima
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RON PITTARD GRAPHIC
TEXT BY DENNIS BITTON
Flyfishermen on the Atlantic
and Pacific coasts take advantage of the shad's
anadromous spring spawning runs to break the doldrums of
winter. For many fishermen, the shad run is the first
time each year that they can pick up a fly rod.
The American shad, Alosa sapidissima, is a member of the
herring family. It shares the family's characteristic
strongly compressed body, thin scales and curved belly,
but not a protruding lower jaw -- a trait the hickory
shad and the skipjack herring share. A Rocky Mountain
trout fisherman would say white shad look something like
Rocky Mountain whitefish. A an experienced saltwater
fisherperson could compare the shad's coloration to that
of a bonefish--shiny.
Adult American shad have a row of black spots behind
their gill covers. The body is predominantly silver with
a single dorsal fin on top of the back. The upper rows
of scales have well defined dark lines forming faint
lines on the sides of the adult. The largest of all the
shads (there are six species that share the Alosa
genus), the American shad attains a length of two feet
or more, generally weighing between 1 ½ to 8 pounds,
with a record fish occasionally weighing in at l0 or 12
pounds.
The unusual thing about shad is the amount of territory
they cover. American Shad spawn in major coastal rivers
all the way from Florida to the Gulf of St. Lawrence on
America's east coast. They're prevalent in Connecticut
and Massachusetts, throughout the Chesapeake drainage
system in Maryland, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.
The only variable is the time of year when they appear.
The run of shad on the Pacific coast, from San Diego to
Alaska, is the same species as the Atlantic coast fish.
It's no accident. A fishery biologist named Seth Green
took newly hatched shad fry from the Hudson River near
Rochester, New York to California's Sacramento River in
1871. They took hold and spread. Today, there are third
generation west coast shad fishermen who think the fish
are native species. For all the fun they have with them,
they might as well be.
Interestingly, many (but by no means all) shad don't
share the "one stream or nothing" attitude of salmon and
steelhead. Tagged fish have been found in different
rivers in subsequent years. They're apparently
opportunists as far as spawning goes, and move from
their ocean locations into streams as the mood hits
them. Biologists feel that the single most dominant
motivating factor is water temperature. If shad are at
the mouth of a river when the temperature is "right",
they move inland. An awfully lot of spring fly fishermen
are very glad they do.
Fly patterns tend to be simple and relatively small. Use
of red, pink, white or silver body and/or wings is
almost mandatory. There are lots of patterns, old ones
and recently made up ones, that attract spawning shad.
Once shad eggs hatch, the fry stay in their native
streams until fall, then drift down to the ocean where
they spend two to five years in saltwater before
returning to repeat the cycle. Little is known about
their life in the ocean. A definitive study of the
shad's ocean going life has yet to be made.
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