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One of the Coolest events i've witnessed on the River

3K views 27 replies 21 participants last post by  Rybo 
#1 · (Edited)
Been meaning to post this story for a few months, just haven't had the time.

At any rate about mid-November of last year I went down to a check one of my River eyes spots, water was a tad low, but I thought it could still produce. Got down to the hole right about dark and proceeded to start rigging up my gear, however something immediately caught my attention. It sounded like Smallmouth smacking baitfish on the surface, and it was coming from the base of a riffle that I knew was only maybe 18" deep, max. At first I just thought I was hearing things, because after all it was way to dark for Smallies, and even then area which the noise was coming from was simply too shallow to hold gamefish.

Then I heard it again "SMACK"...SMACK,SMACK.....SMACK!

I said enough is enough, that has to be fish busting, no doubt about it. So I dropped what I was doing and crept up the riffle, step by step, as these fish (whatever they were) were holding in mere inches of water. What followed was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in all my years pounding the River(s).

Channel Catfish, Probably a solid hundred of them, had pinned a massive school of shad right up at the start of the riffle. The Catfish had absolutely inundated every square inch of the river below, essentially blocking every last escape route. Those Cats were in maybe 20" of water, literally lying on top of each other, slurping down shad after shad after shad after shad that came washing down. It was amazing. But it got better.

I decided what the hell, i'll throw my head lamp on, see if I cant spot a monster cat before they all spook. Threw my headlamp on, shined it right on them; They could have cared less, they just kept right on munching! Wondered to myself how close they would allow me to get before they spooked, so I waded out towards them, head lamp blazing and all; they could have cared less!. Finally got right over top of them, (im not kidding, they were in-between my legs), headlamp beaming and all, and they just kept right on slurping down shad! It was absolutely unreal.

Waded throughout the school (of what had to be hundreds of Channels), and every last one acted the same way; they could have cared less about my presence, they had their mind set on one thing...SHAD!

Im guessing they got full after about 30 minutes, and like that they were gone.

By far one of the coolest things i've ever seen :)

Sorry for the poor picture quality; my Camera was having a fit trying to focus on the fish with all the current.

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#4 ·
Really cool. Did you see any big ones in the school?

This past year I was duck hunting northern deleware res mud flats after they lowered the lake and I would see tons of cats cruisin by in 6-12 inches of water before sunrise with my spot light. They were usually by themselves though, seeing a school like that had to be something.
 
#8 ·
Really cool. Did you see any big ones in the school?
No absolute monsters but most of them were in the 5 to 12 pound range.

And those pictures represent a fraction of the fish that were there, as I said before they had inandated a rather large riffle/run, they were absolutely everywhere, often times in water so shallow it was barely covering their backs.
 
#17 ·
Wow! Your post made a memory come up real strong! My buddy had a friend that lived in southern Mahoning Co., and some years ago he was down there enjoying a few adult beverages. It got late and his friend handed him one of the early generation night vision systems that was then available to the public, and they took a drive on the back roads. My buddy said he never saw so many deer in such a short time in his life!

Yup.

They likely forced them up from a deep pool that was shortly down stream. Then, once cornered, they just had a field day. I've seen a similar scenario play out with a School of Smallmouth that "herded" a Giant school of shad into the mouth of a narrow, swift riffle. Shad didn't want to go down the riffle and got confused, and within an instant that pack of Smallmouth pounced. Every last fish that was involved (Both Shad and Smallmouth) ended up rolling down the main current shoot, with the Smallmouth blowing the spinning shad out of the water as they all tumbled down stream. It was wild.
It's so cool when you get to witness something like that. One time I was in East Liverpool and sidetracked to a small park at the bottom end of Little Beaver Creek. This is just over the line in PA., and has a few picnic tables, a small parking lot and a boat ramp. I was in E. L'pool on other business, and didn't have my fishing stuff, I just wanted a look at the creek. This was late Summer, early Fall, and there were schools of baitfish in the creek that were mind boggling. Had to be several thousands of fish in each school. They kept surging toward the surface and breaking the water. I figured there might be predators under these schools pushing them to the surface, which is just as big a barrier as the shore or a riffle. I guess I'll never know.
 
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#13 ·
Those pictures are totally fake!!!! As a matter of fact, I bet you have never even been down to a river, let alone catch a fish!!!!

O Yea, wait a minute. I do remember seeing you pull in 5 slob saugeye in about 10 minutes time one evening. ;)

That's pretty cool. Do you think they had pushed the shad up into the fast water where they get tumbled back down to the feeding frenzy?

I need to get out fishing...

ski
 
#15 ·
Do you think they had pushed the shad up into the fast water where they get tumbled back down to the feeding frenzy?
Yup.

They likely forced them up from a deep pool that was shortly down stream. Then, once cornered, they just had a field day. I've seen a similar scenario play out with a School of Smallmouth that "herded" a Giant school of shad into the mouth of a narrow, swift riffle. Shad didn't want to go down the riffle and got confused, and within an instant that pack of Smallmouth pounced. Every last fish that was involved (Both Shad and Smallmouth) ended up rolling down the main current shoot, with the Smallmouth blowing the spinning shad out of the water as they all tumbled down stream. It was wild.
 
#18 ·
Very cool!! I have seen catfish feeding on the surface before and have caught a couple just floating bait...but never seen anything like you saw and those pictures are pretty sweet. Definitely something that would be awesome to see in person.
 
#23 ·
I am so jealous of this! I plan to spend more time out in the rivers after dark this year.

A year and a half ago another member and myself got caught about a mile upstream from our cars at dark and decided to wade back through the waist deep water in the dark. We left our lights off for most of the trek, and went by light of the moon. Seeing all of the glow bugs line either bank of the river was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
 
#24 ·
When I was 12 or so we went on a vacation to New Orleans (that was an education) and then to Biloxi. There we could wade far into the Gulf, and we'd be surrounded by mullet gently nibbling at us. They would jump; I have this snapshot memory of my father standing in the water framed by two fish flying on both sides of him.

Ah but when all of the fish flee in one direction, that's a bad sign. I saw that, and then was stung by a jellyfish and it hurt exactly like a bee sting but left no visible mark at all.
 
#27 ·
Remember that point area where we first ran into each other ( I'm guessing you don't, it was a long time ago). At any rate this all went down at the first riffle upstream from there.
 
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