It’s that time of the year again. American shad, those bony, silvery anadromous fish, resplendently bescaled in mother-of-pearl, are returning from the ocean in the tens of thousands, seeking to spawn in rivers like the Sacramento, the American, the Feather and the Yuba. The excitement of the fishing community is palpable. The phones at the fly shop where I work ring constantly. It’s as if the grownups at the other end of the line are little kids again asking, “Is Santa Claus in town?” Yes, the shad are here.
In anticipation of the shad run, we devotees have been cooking up treats for Santa — flies of different shapes and colors to entice this largest of the herring family. Sitting at my vise and drinking a cold IPA, I’ve been enjoying the process of tying a shad fly named the Firecracker, a pattern created by my good friend Jeff Ching. The Firecracker is easy to tie, as are most patterns for shad. This is how you bake this treat.
Begin by placing a size 10 hook in the vise after first sliding a red, 1/8-inch (3.2-millimeter) tungsten bead up against the eye. Attach red thread behind the bead. Now cut a four-inch length of red wire and attach it behind the bead. Secure the wire evenly with thread along the top of the shank to above the hook point. Leave the wire hanging off the rear and wrap the thread back to behind the bead. To make a tail, behind the bead, attach about fifteen strands of Minnow Belly Flashabou. Secure it the same way as the wire, back to above the hook point, evenly and methodically wrapping over the materials to create a smooth, thin body. Trim the tail to a length of about a quarter of the hook shank. (As the image above shows, longer is OK, too.)
Return the thread to the bead and attach a length of gold holographic Mylar, then wrap it evenly back to the tail, then evenly back to the bead. Tie it off and snip away the excess. Now wrap the red wire like the stripes on a candy cane up to the bead. Tie it off and remove the red wire tag. Finally, create a collar of red thread behind the bead, whip finish, and coat everything but the tail with varnish or UV resin. You’re done.
At times, shad will eat anything you can imagine tying to a hook, size 6 through 16. It’s fun to concoct zany shapes and color combinations. That said, there are certain compositional elements that are necessary in a fly pattern if an angler wants to catch shad consistently, and the Firecracker pattern contains them: flash, color, and sparseness. Size can be very important, too. Larger flies work better in dirty water, but in clear water, such as you’ll find on the American River, size 10 through 16 shad patterns work best. I can’t wait to set off this Firecracker on the swing and under an indicator with my fishing clients.
