Re: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Shad Foul Hooking

Several suggestions - slow down your retrieve.  I know you said you have, but if you’re fishing a “shad buster” style pattern that rides hook point up and you’re still hooking them dorsal side, you need to go slower and with smaller strips.

Also – your sinking leader might be sinking faster than your fly and as you strip you’re leader is below your fly bringing it down into the strike zone, foul hooking fish.  How much tippet are you adding to the leader?  It shouldn’t be much, somewhere between 2-3 feet of 10-12lb.

My suggestion is use a sinking fly line instead of sinking leaders.  Your proper hook up rate should improve.

R

Richard Farino

Urban Angler VA | 108 N. Washington Street  2nd Floor | Alexandria, VA 22314 

(703) 527-2524 | fax: (703) 527-3313 | richard@urbanangler.com    

From: MCartoski <mcartoski@gmail.com>
Reply-To: <tidal-potomac-fly-rodders@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 1:45 PM
To: <tidal-potomac-fly-rodders@googlegroups.com>
Subject: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Shad Foul Hooking

Hey guys, I've noticed an unusually high amount of foul hooks while shad fishing this year and was hoping someone would have some insight as to what I might be doing to cause this.

I'm using a 'fast sink' sinking leader along with patterns similar to Rob's "shad buster", fishing the Rappahannock around the Rt 1 bridge.  I noticed it last year and the trend continued when I went last weekend; occurring on around 50% of hookups.  I've been purposely stripping more slowly to try to avoid this but I keep on hooking them just in front of the dorsal fin.  

Is anyone else having this problem or am I doing something wrong?  If you have any tips then please let me know!

--
http://www.tpfr.org
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