Rocky Mount Academy has recently started it’s very own Duck’s Unlimited chapter. This club is made up of high schoolers Caleb Lambert, Thomas Griffin, Lauren
Seale, Jack Boucher, Corbett Cobb, Thomas Moore, Jacob Brady, Will Stewart, Chandler Gazaway, Griffin Wingfield, Woodall Rose, and Coach Cameron Ramsey as the adviser. This club started at the beginning of the year but has its largest events going on within the next few months. The first weekend in April, DU is hosting multiple chapters and having a three day long event in Columbia, NC. A handful of the RMA members will be attending. This seminar talks a lot about banquets, fundraisers, and volunteer work you will do if you choose to join DU in college. There will also be skeet shooting, decoy carving, and various hunting activities. Not only is that coming up, but the raffle drawing for the remote controlled camo cooler is on May 1. The tickets are $5.00 for one or $20.00 for five. There are plenty of tickets left so your chances of winning are pretty high. All of the profits are going directly to DU. We appreciate all the support and find a DU member to purchase tickets.

In other news, the American and Hickory shad have slowly begun their run up the Tar and Roanoke rivers. Both rivers get both species of shad, however the two are slightly different. The American shad are typically larger and their bottom jaws do not extend farther than their top jaw, unlike the Hickory shad.These fish are also called the “poor man’s tarpon” because of their fun fight and similar physical characteristics. They really put up a phenomenal fight when paired with a short light to ultralight rod. They usually live in saltwater but when the water temperature gets between about 55-62 degrees the shad make their journey up river to lay their roe. They tend to group together in large schools and swim abundantly in the NC coastal plain rivers the month of March. Shad typically feed on plankton, fish eggs, and baby fish. These fish are some of North Carolina’s most fun fish to catch.

Targeting these fish can be challenging, but is definitely worth the reward when you get into a school or two of them which you may encounter from Jamesville to West of Rocky Mount. Fisherman tend to fish for shad the same way regardless of their location or river. Most anglers use 5-6 foot light or ultralight rods. I pair my rods with smaller reels and like to use either 6 pound fluorocarbon or light braid with a fluorocarbon leader. The braid allows for further casting distance and is more abrasion resistant than mono or flouro. I tend to throw a double shad rig. The advantages of having two rigs include not having the ability to catch two fish at the same time, but having a greater chance at catching one fish. Also, having two lures on one rig gives a greater weight and therefore increasing casting distance. You can purchase these at your local tackle store or make your own. The rigs are made up of a shad spoon on the end with a shad dart or crappie jig tied on the front. I throw many colors including gold, pink, green, white, chartreuse, and yellow. I like to have a wide variety of colors such as these because depending on the water color and daylight, the shad hone in on a certain color. The shad are not very finicky, and the key to catching them is definitely location. If you get into a school of shad, they will basically bite anything. I think the most effective way to catch shad is hitting as many spots in a short amount of time until you start getting bit. Start at one spot on the river and plan out your next spots. I like to already have in mind 4-5 different spots on the river to go to before I leave the house. If you catch one shad, you will likely catch more. If you haven’t caught one in the first fifteen minutes, don’t leave just yet. Sometimes the shad are not quite there yet and can come in spurts. If I catch a handful of shad every thirty minutes or so, I will stay put. That is because I know that there are fish moving through that spot on the river, so it is a good place. I have found the most successful time of day to catch shad is in the early morning. They will bite all day long, but the days I catch the high capacity numbers, start biting around 7 am. Shad fishing during the early spring is an eastern North Carolina tradition and with some time, planning, and luck, you can be very successful catching “the poor man’s tarpon”.