It's a Shad Thing

I am an American shad, and my story begins far from the rivers you know.
I was born in the flowing freshwater of the Willamette River, somewhere between gravel and current, where my parents released me into the drift. I began life as a tiny, transparent larva, carried downstream by currents I could not yet fight. The river fed me—microscopic plankton, invisible clouds of life—and as I grew, I learned to swim, to school, to survive.

Soon, something inside me urged movement. I followed the pull of the current westward, past bends and banks, until the river met the vastness of the Columbia River and, eventually, the open Pacific Ocean. There, everything changed.

In the ocean, I grew strong. Food was abundant—zooplankton, small crustaceans—and I became sleek and silver, built for distance. Years passed in the saltwater expanse. I traveled widely, but never forgot the chemical signature of the river where I began. It stayed imprinted within me, a map written in scent.
Then, one year, the urge returned—stronger than hunger, stronger than fear. I turned back toward the coast, joining thousands like me who had all learned the tale of Sunset spawns beneath the mighty Willamette Falls; we entered the Columbia again, pushing against the current this time, our bodies adapting from salt to fresh water. The journey was not easy. We faced predators, fishermen, and barriers like dams that slowed and strained us.

When I reached the Willamette once more, I searched for the right conditions—flowing water, suitable gravel, the right temperature. There, I released my eggs into the current, trusting the river as my parents once had. The floating eggs hatch within 3 to 15 days, depending once again on surrounding water temperatures.

Some of us die after spawning. Others, like me, if I am fortunate, may survive and return to the ocean, only to repeat the journey. My oldest relative passed at 10 years of age. My life is a cycle of movement—river to ocean and back again—guided by instinct, shaped by water, and forever tied to the rhythms of the Willamette River and its surrounding rivers, like the Columbia and Umpqua.

Shad can be fished here in West Linn from May to July using a floating or full-sink line and a little fly called a Silver Bitchen, or even a Christmas Island Special. Shad as hit hard as they fight, usually taking on a swung or stripped fly in the current seam.

This past Monday, Joel and I took the Boston Whaler out for a cruise, and of course, had a pair of fly rods aboard. We motored up above the I-205 construction barge and anchored up to fish. Joel hooked up using his 7wt and a 250 Streamer Line, but the fish came off near the boat. My 6wt. with a sinking head and running line wasn't getting as deep, but I soon mastered the technique and hooked several fish in a row before we decided to head up towards Willamette Falls.

As we motored into position, a river otter was chasing shad in the froth swirling in the heavy current below the falls. He didn't notice our approach as he slashed back and forth as Shad attempted to evade his teeth. Suddenly, he sensed our presence, lifted his head, looked at the boat, then at us, and dove for safety.

I took the wheel and held the boat in place while Joel fashioned an expendable anchor from a wad of chain he had salvaged from the hardware store's scrap pile and tossed it into the foaming waters below Black Rock. Our plow anchor works great in the sandy bottom of Puget Sound, but not something he wanted to lose in the rocks and old cables below the falls. 

As Osprey, Eagles, Swallows, and other feathered creatures swooped overhead, we cast our flies and stripped them back, anticipating that sudden grab that bent our fly rods and made the reels sing. On one cast, Joel reached down to clear a dock line from the deck when his rod jerked downriver, almost pulling it from his grasp. It turned out to be the biggest fish of the day, and once landed, it was safely tucked into a plastic bag in the cooler with several friends to be exchanged for Dungeness Crab later in the fall.

By now, it was late afternoon, so we pulled anchor and headed downriver, stopping to visit a few friends with riverfront homes before putting the Whaler back on the trailer and tucking in at home. A great adventure, 15 minutes from our front door.