Columbia River Shad
By Dale Dorcus

Columbia River for shad, immediately below John Day dam, on the south side of river. This report is in 2 parts:

1. Main tips, from my notes over the years
2. "Too-detailed" tips you'll need to follow if you want to hook 100 shad per day (don't bother reading unless a. you aren't satisfied w/catching a few dozen shad per day, or b. you have way too much time on your hands, like me!)

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MAIN TIPS:
Why fish at Bonneville when you seem to catch more shad (and not have to put up with quite as many people) at John Day? Unlimited number of super camping spots 100 feet to 2 miles away from the fishing area!

At John Day, my tests indicate that shad darts and the "Shad Killer" brand lure noticeably beat those plain walleye-style round-head jigs, and those crappie-style jigs, that are both so popular at Bonneville! If you only have those round-head jigs, add flashabou to them!

Shad "NEVER" seem to strike while your dart/jig is pointing downstream or sideways to the current. On a dart, "ALL" strikes come as the lure is swinging or pointing UPSTREAM!

One day here I was catching a fish about every 4 casts, but a guy next to me was catching them every 1.5 casts! His secret: adding a ONE INCH LONG BRASS weight (the kind bass fishermen use in front of rubber worms) about 23 inches in front of his dart. It ATTRACTS the fish he said! I use these 3/8 oz. BRASS weights now as my tests indicate it's the best way!

DON'T USE 1/8 OZ. DARTS/JIGS....here, shad hardly bite unless it's 1/16 or even 1/32 oz. darts/jigs. Best dart colors are:
· Chartreuse w/red head
· Shiny/bare jig head
· Red
· Green

To get flows & fish counts I go to:
ftp://ftp.nwd-wc.usace.army.mil/pub/cafe/r091.txt (yes, "ftp://")
One biologist I called said don't bother going to John Day if flows are 450,000 or higher.

I feel that if flows are much under 280,000 that the shad (the main horde of fish, anyway) congregate upstream of the fishing boundary, where you can't fish.
I don't go until John Day shad counts are 10,000 per day or more. My notes indicate this usually occurs between June 10 and July 6.

At Bonneville I have always had bad fishing BELOW 20,000 shad/day, and good fishing when it's OVER 20,000/day.

At John Day, I don't fish the north side of the river, I fish the south side. At the usual June flows, the south fish ladder has 2 to 8 times as many shad traversing it as the north side.

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"TOO-DETAILED" TIPS TO HOOK 100 SHAD PER DAY (if you're happy catching a few dozen shad per day, then relax and don't waste your time reading this):
For you Washington anglers, you can get an Oregon license 24 hours at Dinty's Market which is immediately on the Oregon side just as you head south over the bridge at Biggs. Phone 541-739-2236.

My notes indicate that if you like bigger shad, or like shad roe, fish after about June 25th. The females are bigger than males, and mostly arrive about 10 days after the males.

My studies indicate that people "naturally" reel at about 1 turn per second. But my notes indicate, that in current, you'll catch way more if you don't reel in at more than 1/2 of a turn of your reel handle per second. The shad don't like to fight the current much to chase your lure.

If you buy darts with hair tails, cut off the hair, or else lure is too big!!
More current flow pushes the bulk of the fish downstream, less flow and the fish move upstream. The flows here vary by 80,000 cfs per day! Locating the fish is the key, and experience has taught me that when the cfs flows at John Day are the following, the best starting point will most likely be:

360,000 cfs: At the end of the parking lot, which is about 80' upstream from the end of the rip-rap.

330,000 cfs: A large white line is painted on the rocks, in about the middle of the parking lot. Fish where the line hits the water.

320,000 cfs: immediately below that huge "sluce" that transports the salmon smolts downstream.

300,000 cfs: 80' upstream from "sluce" (1/2 way from "sluce" to 1st Indian platform upstream.)

290,000 cfs: Within 50 feet of the upstream most fishing deadline, right below the dam.

The current is strongest from 6AM to 9AM (power requirements are highest, since customers are getting ready for their day) so during this time the shad are pushed DOWNSTREAM a bit from the normal spots. After 9AM I work my way UPSTREAM slowly, as the perfect current flows will not be in the same locations as during the peak flow periods of 6AM to 9AM. This is important since the water all looks the same, but the biggest shad schools are concentrated in maybe a 60' section of the 60 miles of this part of the river!

I almost KNOW that your town probably does not sell the best shad lures! Shad darts are so hard to find that no place in Bellingham has them, and the nation's #1 fishing tackle mail-order place, Bass Pro Shops, doesn't have ANY of them either! But with this tip you can reach over to your phone by your computer and get all the darts you need!: Call Fishermen's Marine and Outdoor in Oregon City and mail order stuff at 1-800-718-2628. It's shad section alone is almost one third the size of my local Fred Meyer's entire fishing section. Rufus General Store (3 miles from where you fish) has licenses (opens at 6AM), and the 2nd largest supply of shad darts I've ever seen. Phone 541-739-2534.

The "Shad Killer" lure is sold almost exclusively by it's manufacturer, Bill Ezell from Hermiston Oregon. Email me if you want his phone number, or mailing address to mail-order.

Don't use normal colored hooks on your darts/jigs! ALL highliners I've ever interviewed use shiny GOLD colored hooks on their darts/jigs! OR they use normal colored hooks but tie Flashabou to the collar of the jig. Paint an eye (just a black dot, a felt tip pen will do fine) on each side of the head of your jigs.

White w/red head is the all-time #1 shad color. It's #1 on the Willamette, it's #1 on the Yuba River. It's often the only color sold in stores...but many people have told me it sucks at John Day!

I've noticed people catch way fewer fish if they use (like I've done inadvertantly many times) a weight that's over about 1/3 of an ounce. You'll have to reel too fast, to keep it off the incredibly grabby rocks, for the shad to really want to grab it in the strong current.

Don't use big lures. I was fishing next to a guy, and we were both using the same color and style of lure, but I caught a fish every other cast and he was skunked until I gave him that lure in the 1/16 oz. size. Then he started outfishing me!

Flows data is given in arrears (you know, it's like a rear view mirror - doesn't tell where you're going, only where you've BEEN!) So I call the Columbia River flows FORECASTING people at 503-808-3941. I call the day before I go, or plan to go, to know what exact spot to fish, and whether it'll be worth going or not.

The following site is the most detailed fishing-information site for one river in the world! It has so much info that you could even find out (not that you'd really want to) what the barometric pressure, counts of all species of salmon/shad, water clarity, flows, etc. at any Columbia River dam was on any date in the last 20 years, nicely graphed out for you!:
http://shazam.cqs.washington.edu/dart/adultpass.html

Technically, highliners say the best indicator of when you should go right below John Day or not is how many shad went over the Dalles Dam about ONE WEEK week ago. It takes the shad about one week to go from Dalles to John Day.

Looking at JOHN DAY shad counts technically only tells you how many shad LEFT the fishing spot in question, not how many are IN it.

The real fancy way to determine how many fish are in this general section of the river is to take the current Dalles CUMMULATIVE total and from that subtract the John Day CUMMULATIVE total! (Don't you wish you could tell exactly many fish of one species are in EVERY section of a river you fish!)

My experiments indicate that (only the shad know why!) I roughly double my catch rate if I tie the knot to the TOP of the hook eye of the dart and not to the FRONT of the hook eye of the dart, where you'd THINK it should be tied. This might allow the dart to wobble from side to side just a tad more? After every strike, or fish, or hang-up, I make a point to glance at my dart to see if the knot is still on the top, or has migrated to the front of the eye.

The rocks are so slippery when they get wet here that I've slipped and hurt myself a bit. So now I only use FELT covered footwear here.
For BONNEVILLE shad info, such as catch-rate per angler-day, go to:
http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis.mummy/web/vortex/search
(Searches the Seattle Times site for the fishing report. Does not give John Day info, however.) Practice catch and release.