Ohio River Hybrids Starting to Chase Surface Shad
Ohio River Hybrids
Ohio River Hybrids on the Move
by Robb Hoff
August 24, 2012
As the threadfin shad start to move in masses and the shadows of one swirling vortex after another starts to drift along the surface of the Ohio River, the hybrid striped bass start to take notice and embark upon a feeding frenzy that makes for fun sight fishing.
The shad are bigger later into the summer and so are the hybrids. The shad schools will continue to gain size as the water temperature cools heading into fall and the action reaches a fevered pitch with literally one cast after another yielding chunky and often large hybrids.
What you're fishing with may matter less than where you are fishing because it's casting into these schools that is ultimately most important. But my lure preference through experience has always been the Rapala Shad Rap.
Now at about $7 a piece, it can be frustrating to lose these lures to snags, so be mindful that these deep runners with their treble hooks will snag. But they look and move so much like the real thing, there's not a lot of comparable substitutes.
The fish pictured was caught on a Rapala Shad Rap SR5, which is slightly smaller than the SR7 I'll switch to next week. For kids, the treble hooks on these lures can spell trouble, so removing the hooks is best left to the adults.
Hybrid fishing on the Ohio River is a great experience that is available to both bank and boat fisherman and should be required curriculum for any school in a locality that borders the Ohio River. The more people fishing, the better the world is.
