Shadtastic fishing amidst the crowds

The weekend was now over. I was having dinner at my in-laws the following evening, so after work B set out for the bridge by himself. I received a call from him right after we’d sat down, but excused myself to answer the phone despite looking impolite—this was serious business.
“Hey man what’s up?” I asked.
“I got down here about ten minutes ago” he said anxiously.
“Yeah…” I interrupted, knowing from his tone of voice that something very important was going to follow.
“I went down the trail to the left this time because only a few people were there.”
“Yeah…” I once again interjected.
“It’s high tide and there’s this rock about ten feet off the bank that’s almost completely under water, so I decided to stand on the bank behind it to cast out and bring it in behind the eddy.” He said running out of breath. “I’ve caught four so far.” He added.
“What?!” I shouted, much too loud that I was overheard by my wife who was already irritated that I was putting my and B’s shad fishing saga ahead of dinner with our relatives.
“Yeah man it’s awesome!” He chuckled.
“Oh man. We had to come over for dinner tonight.” I sighed sarcastically more to myself than anyone else.
“Yeah, sorry man.” B said apathetically.
“What have you gotten them on?” I asked.
“I went out and bought some more of those orange darts, and got some spoons too. I’m using the dart that guy gave us the other night right now.” He replied.
“Man, nice.” I said.
“Yeah, there are actually about five of us out here catching them, but this spot I’m in is paying off the best.”
“Damn dinner!” I muttered, so as not to be heard this time.
“Oh yeah. Man I forgot, I actually had one jump a couple times way out from me, then when I’d gotten him about fifteen feet away he jumped right onto the rocks.” B said chuckling.
“What? From fifteen feet away?” I asked in complete fisherman disbelief.
“Yeah. Seriously. It was ridiculous. The guys around me said they’d never seen anything like it before. It was awesome.” Abruptly he added, “Alright, well, I’m gonna try to get some more. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Yeah, good luck man, let me know.” I said. I closed and pocketed my phone and headed back to the dinner table.
Not ten minutes later my pocket beeped sounding the receipt of a text message. B had sent me notice his count was up to nine. The grimace in my face was picked up by my wife who shot me a glance that told me to keep my mouth shut, enjoy dinner, and get over it. Twenty minutes later the count was up to fourteen. The final message of the night set the bar at twenty.
We could barely catch one shad the day before, now B had landed twenty at dusk in just over an hour. It seemed the evening hours might be the optimal time to go fishing from now on, so that’s what we did.
Usually after dinner, but in some cases not, (which we’d pay for) our wives became fishermen’s widows every evening for the next week or so. After he left work, B would come by and pick me up, parking right in the middle of the road with his hazard lights blinking for as long as it took me to load my pair of non-broken down, two-piece rods through the back passenger side door. His rod would already be sitting there on the back seat facing forward stretching all the way to the dashboard when my two made their way in to accompany. I'd previously readied mine for battle so as not to lose time when we arrived on the scene; one equipped with an eighth-ounce orange dart, the other with a gold spoon. His rod would have one or the other of the same lures tied on and attached to a middle guide. Rarely would we deviate from either of the two guaranteed weapons. We would frequent the same spot he fished by the big rock ten feet off the bank on the trail to the left just under the rapids of the Fall Line. The spoons would be for use earlier in the evening before the sun completed its decent upriver, with the darts coming into play at the onset of twilight. Occasionally the service of the orange dart was called into employment earlier than sundown, as the shad would begin to ignore the spoons, but for the most part protocol indicated spoons first, darts second.
It became normal for us each to tally a dozen fish in an evening; mostly hickory shad, but the errant, rare and larger American would make its way to the end of our lines now and again. The shad were certainly running thick, many of them allowing us the privilege of experiencing their fights. I hadn’t yet gotten one to jump fifteen feet away from me onto the rocks at my feet, but I’d been having a great time with them nonetheless.
That weekend brought a good deal of people to the banks of the James at the Mayo Bridge in search of the shad’s eggs, or roe, what we’d been told was quite a delicacy in these parts. The shad craze began to make more sense. It wasn’t simply the amazing fight the fish gave, it was the eggs they carried that made Richmonders and many others in the central Virginia and Tidewater areas covet the anadromous creatures. Not being a fan of caviar, I had no desire to eat any shad roe. Though I learned that if one was to partake, sautéing the egg sacks in garlic butter for a short time over low heat produced quite the treat. No thanks.
Buckets and buckets of female shad were filled by fishermen removing the animals from their spawning grounds to now be taken to angler’s homes where they’d have their stomachs carefully slit open, egg sacks removed, and carcasses discarded into the trash. The cycle of life I guess.
What I failed to comprehend was the need for an overwhelming majority of these particular fishermen to stand directly next to me or B, and cast right where we were casting for the same fish. With the great expanse of river surrounding us there was no need to crowd one another. Our frustration grew immensely from Saturday to Sunday when regardless of what time of day we were out, everyone else with a rod in Richmond seemed to be out as well. This was not a new concept as we’d seen fishermen en masse since B’s discovery of the area weeks before, though the concept of the discourteous angler was new and not welcomed. We decided that on weekends we’d leave the James and its shad alone, they had enough problems to deal with.
I was content fishing in the evenings, but not content with B having the record for most fish in an outing. It was time for me to take advantage of not being stranded behind a desk during the day and make my mark on the 09 shad season solo.