Fish Species Tally?

 

I’m have trouble settling in my mind whether threadfin shad should count in my 2026 fish species tally.

I caught two in back-to-back casts while fishing a causeway at Lake Guntersville last month. Both were snagged on the rear hook of my jerkbait but both fully unintentionally.

I’m not sure why I struggle to count them.

I definitely would count a shad or other baitfish hooked in the mouth, and in truth the smaller and more minnow-like it was the more proud I’d probably be of the novelty of the catch. And I typically would count a foul hooked gamefish, since the snagging would never be intentional.

I suppose with most snagged fish I’m inclined to assume they swiped at my bait and missed but I got them sideways when I set the hook. With a jerkbait fished through a big school of shad, it seems more like they just got in the way. That makes them seem less like accomplishments, but I guess not less of “catches.”

As I’ve put my thoughts in written words and looked at it, I seem to have convinced myself that the shad should indeed qualify as a fish species I’ve caught this year. 

2026 Fish Species List to Date

• brown trout
• rainbow trout 
• spotted bass
• smallmouth bass 
• threadfin shad
• largemouth bass

Everything That Glimmers

I know that everything that glimmers is not gold, but all the shimmery stuff I've been finding on post-Christmas sale racks and even on the living room floor after presents were open has seemed like a goldmine to me.

Soon I suppose I'll be looking for brown, orange and black fur again and thinking about matching crawfish, sculpins and other dark-colored critters. For now I'm more excited about taking the shimmery stuff and creating minnow patterns and bright jigs for high water days.

Hard to beat half off $.77 for a box of tinsel. That is unless you count the free stuff off the floor!

Thursday Tips: Finding Fish that are on the Move

Fall is a transition time.

How many times have you heard that? It gets said a lot because for many kinds of fish it is true. But what exactly does that mean to you as a fishermen, and how do you use that truth to help you catch more fish? The simple answer is that with the season changing, the fish are moving from one place to another, so you need to be wise about searching for them.

With bass in reservoirs, as an example, the early fall move often is from main-lake structure up creeks and onto flats, usually behind shad, which are also on the move. Other fish might move up rivers, move from deep holes to shoals, move from the beaches to inside water, or make other types of moves.

Your job as a fisherman is to learn enough about the fish's behavior to know where they are leaving and where they are headed and then identify the highways in-between. Often the highways are either breaklines, which follow creek or river arms and offer access to deep and shallow water, or points, which bridge deep areas and shallow areas, proving structure at the whole range of depths in-between.

Once you've figured out the highways the fish are apt to be using, you just have to figure out where they are along those roads, which can be accomplished by riding and searching with electronics, using fishing strategies that allow you to cover water and search with your lures, or, for the best of both worlds, you can troll or cast fast-moving search lures while keeping the boat in motion AND keep a constant eye on your electronics.

Whatever strategy you select, where you find one fish, you're apt to find many more because fish on the go commonly travel in packs.

How to Imitate a School of Shad with One Lure

You may have heard a bit of the buzz about the new BaitBall Series of lures that LIVETARGET introduced at ICAST. This short video with Elite Series pro Stephen Browning explains the concept and talks about how to use these lures to catch bass. For more videos, please visit the our YouTube Channel.