Running with the Shad on the James River

Relentlessly rainy April came to Richmond.
I had been frequenting a local tackle conglomerate for two months now, enough that my face was well known in the fly fishing section of the store. While shopping for more and more superfluous tying materials, I’d ask about shad fishing techniques: flies the fish had been known to attack, whether sinking line was better than floating line, speed of retrieve, and the list went ruthlessly on—and on again with each repeat visit; same questions. I had begun to suspect that storewide APB’s were sent in code to warn the sector’s employees of my presence, giving them enough of a warning from the time it took me to walk from the front door to their sector that they could find a way to escape my imminent barrage of repetitive questions. I’m almost certain the announcement on the store’s PA system of, “Jerk baits line 4” meant I was on the premises. By now employees had become too busy to talk and I took the hint. Enough talk. I’d heard through the grapevine that the much anticipated shad run was now full on in the James River anyways. Though, unless the fish are on the end of my line they don’t exist.
So I scrounged up some fishing buddies and set out with all of my new fly gear; reels with both floating and sinking line, dozens of Tommy’s Torpedo variants I’d been told to tie by my friends at the tackle warehouse, a fresh out of the box pair of waders and a vest a size too small. I imagine other fishermen on the river would have seen me as the typical city boy trying his best to look like the cover of the spring L.L. Bean catalogue, while possessing the fly fishing skill of a day-trader on his first trip to the outdoors. I felt like a fat-man-in-a-little-vest. When had the river all to ourselves, which should have told me something.
Due to the river’s height after the incessant rain I could barely get safely far enough off the bank to accomplish a full forward cast, but at least my sinking line was getting down in the strong current. My hope for landing a nice hickory or American shad on my 8’6 Sage ran as high as the river. Also called poor man’s tarpon, shad, I’d heard were some of the best fighting fish for their size; putting up an acrobatic fight, jumping feet into the air similar to their larger relatives, and never giving up until they were in the net or on the bank. Cast after cast I made in this hole and that, behind that eddy and under those branches. But, after spending the greater part of a day walking up and down a two mile span of river I thought would be great shad habitat, I’d had not so much as a snag. The luck of my fishing buddies was equal to mine. Shad-1, Determined anglers who didn’t want to admit defeat-0. My group and I irritably threw in the towel.
I actually needed that towel to dry off my right leg after taking a rock to the knee of my new waders and tearing a hole in them just big enough to soak my right foot with cold river water. Kick me when I’m down. After dropping my buddies off I continued home with a cold and wet right foot, now emanating the pungency of athlete’s foot fungus into my nostrils. Not the best day. Frustrated that all the research I’d done to prepare for my first shad outing had gotten us nowhere, I began to wonder if we were even fishing in the right place…