I was thinking about trying out some shad fishing this year. Can anyone help me out with some good spots to try out in NW oregon? Does anyone out there flyfish for shad? If so, where and how!!
Tight lines......... Evan

Boat or shore?

Use a sparsely dressed #10/12 with gold flat tinsel body over lead wire, chartruse hen hackle (two turns) and a short chartruse tail. If you don't tie, e-mail me and I will bang out a couple for you. Use a sink tip line and cast to a current break.

Fish just below Sportsman Marina at Oregon City or from the bank in the park below where the Clackamas enters the Willamette (Meldrum Bar)

John.

I too would like to fish for shad from the shore. I tried a couple of years ago on the Columbia but, some people didn't like that idea and sent their kids to play behind me. I didn't feel like hooking a kid due to their parents stupidity.

thick in PDX

There was a kid (That's relative, I'm 61 :-) who used to work at the Salmon Bay tackle store in Ballard who made trips to the Columbia to flyfish off the bank for shad with reportedly excellent results. Other than hearing that it was a popular site for Russian immigrants, I'm not sure where it was.

Anybody live in Ballard? The last I heard he worked in Alaska or moved to Germany, but somebody there might know.

John

Just fish the other side of the river. I'm not sure where you were but I fish up at the Bonneville Dam on the WA side and there's all kinds of space to fish. The last couple of years most of the crowd has been fishing the south side of the river on the island. But most of the people fish up near the deadline. The tip of the island is a good spot, with few anglers. Also, the north side of the river has like four hundred yards of riprap to fish, with only a fraction of the anglers. I don't flyfish, but six or seven years ago I read an article in a flyfishing journal about shad flies. One of the flies looked simple to tie and was mainly yarn and a little crystal flash, so I tied up a few on 1/8 oz jigheads. I tried them on my ultralite and they worked awesome. Since then I tie a couple of dozen each season to use. I couldn't possibly explain how to tie them and forgot the name of the journal, but if you're really interested email me and I'll pop one in the mail.

From the WA side is thier enough room to fly cast? I have no issue going up to the WA side. How deep do you have to get? I've heard that because of the depth you need to fish a 7 or 8wt. If possible I would like to fish a five or 6wt or a 7wt "spey"

thanks

thick