Dying Shad

I'm trying to figure out what I was seeing Sunday. Went to Little Maumelle River around 8:30 Sunday morning. As I motored up river I saw a lot of big bird activity..diving into the water etc. All up and down the river were 10's of thousands of dying shad...slowing hitting the water, then diving back down. They weren't floating on top...the dead ones were suspended in the water.

Is this a seasonal thing? Not sure what I was seeing.

You would think the crappie and bass would be going crazy. Saw no obvious activity. Never got a bite. Talked to four others fishing...same story.

Anyone know what was going here?

Thanks.

J

Sounds like a shad kill to me - never saw such for myself but have been told about it. When the water temperatures get into the 40s and drop suddenly some species of shad get stunned or killed because they can't adjust fast enough. It can make for some real slow fishing conditions because they're all stuffed full of shad.

Thanks Jerry. Somewhere in the back of my mind it seems I've read about this happening. Pretty incredible. I did not realize it would make for bad fishing, but it makes sense when you think about it.

Hey there Jerry. I saw this post and thought I'd say hello. I was watchin' you and Russ Bailey on my Midwest Crappie DVD's Friday night and made the connection. Enjoyed the shows.

Jerry is more than likely correct with the temperature change. The most common Kill off of Shad this time of year is a sudden temperature change. If you've ever fished with Shad caught from a casting net, they are very hard to keep alive in the bait bucket and on the hook. They are very sesitive to conditions and do not like quick changes in temp. With the shad not floating on the surface, it sound like the water temperature quickly cooled, mixed and shocked the shad enough to kill them. More than likely with the Drastic Temperature changes lately, this is the cause of the Kill off.

Another cause is when our local govt. waste water treatment facilities get flooded by too much rain, they release some affluent into the system that kill the sensitive species like the shad.

Other causes of Shad kill of is when plants deteriorate and consume dissolved oxygen to the point the fish suffocate. Rivers aren't as suseptable to this type of kill off. Typically other fish species are affected as well if this is the case. Lake Texoma has had some issue with this in the past few years.

Disease is another cause, but the fish will usually show outward signs of this.

Hope this kill off doesn't affect your fishery much.

GLGF

G.

Thanks Kit. Well, I'm certainly hoping is was sudden cold that caused it. Maybe the fishing will pick up throughout the river now that there will be less to eat in the coming months.

I agree with Jerry, it happen here in GA one year. The water was down and the shad got caught in shallow water when the temp drop after a few days of cold weather. But it didnt slow the fishing down, the stripers and bass were having a field day. You just have to be there when it happens, a day or two after the frenzy and your out of luck.

Got A Question, Can You Net The Shad, Freeze Them And Use
Them In The Spring For Catfish. I Have Heard Shad Don't Freeze
Well But I Thought I Would Get Some Opinions.

Thanks
John B.

We catch catfish in the dead of winter in nets. At times they are stuffed with shad ,we suspect a die off when we find this. I've heard trout fishermen below dams do well as shad are pulled through the turbines after a die off.:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kit Papermouth

Hey there Jerry. I saw this post and thought I'd say hello. I was watchin' you and Russ Bailey on my Midwest Crappie DVD's Friday night and made the connection. Enjoyed the shows.

GLGF

G.

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Hey Kit:

I'm glad you enjoyed the shows. We give Russ a hard time but he really does catch some fish.................. if you put him right in the middle of some really hungry ones. :)

He does produce some very interesting and informative shows.

They had a big snow in Oklahoma last week, melted off fast, and dropped water temp drastically. This condition is like "season opening" for the snagging fishermen that line up below the dam spillways.

Ouch J, that's not really what I was wanting to hear! I have my last exam of the year on Friday, and I was hoping to hit the river hard next week. Hopefully it will pick back up by then. As others have mentioned, a shad-kill has always been associated with extremely poor fishing for me.

It's also funny that you mention it, but there were quite a few dead shad floating around at Cane Creek on Saturday. It's difficult to determine if there was a shad-kill there as well, since all of those dam ducks (literally hundreds) constantly stay after those shad. It's almost like fishing in the boat with Gooch, all flailing around fighting over food.

CEB -- there were countless dead shad, but the majority (thousands) were just slowly swiming around popping the surface of the water. I'm not sure if that means they were dying, or just stunned and will recover. When I first looked up river and saw all this I thought I was getting ready to limit out in about 10 minutes. LOL. No ducks, but there was a large variety of fish eating birds having a late Thanksgiving. That's what first caught my attention at the boat ramp, seeing all these birds diving into the water.

Hopefully, the river will get back quickley. Good luck on your test Friday.

John Bower,yes,you should freeze all the shad you can.They will be mushy when you thaw them out,but around here thats the ticket for ice-out cats.They sink as they thaw from the ice,and cats and other fish gorge on them ,even over fresh shad.Freeze them in ziplocks maybe 6 per bag so you only thaw what you need.

Just got a vacuum sealer last sunday,will experiment with that.

Sunday, on Lake DeGray in Cox Creek, there was what appeared to me to be a school of shad at least 50' long, 10-15' deep and probably only as wide as the deepest part of the channel (15-20' wide). They were stationed there between two brushpiles suspended just off the bottom in the channel. They didn't move and I never saw any of them surface. My sonar unit with the water temp feature was out of order, so I was unable to identify the water temp. But, I'm now wondering if it was shad; were they alive, dead or in shock; and could it have been something else like a cloud of debris or even a severe temperature inversion effecting the sonar return.

A few years ago, Conway had a die off just north of the 89 bridge. Before it was discovered what it really was, you could smell the methane or some kind of odor. Gas bubbles by the millions were in an area like the one Darryl described. The concern was there might be some sort of gas line rupture. Divers were dispatched to inspect the area and discovered dead shad decaying on the bottom.