![]() You will hardly be alone on the Roanoke when the striped bass run. By April, the first striped bass will show, and on a good day, with a stout seven- or eight-weight, you can catch dozens. The timing differs slightly from river to river, but here on the Roanoke, the great waves of hickory shad are followed by a smaller push of the larger American shad, which can run to seven pounds and better. In a single tail flick, she’s gone, a shimmer of silver and olive green that disappears like a spark into the night sky. ![]() I slip the hook from her mouth and let her swim out of my hand. I typically keep a couple of roe fish from my first trip to the Roanoke, but it seems a shame to kill this inaugural shad, one so obliging as to nudge open the door to another season. It’s a female, her belly swollen with roe. ![]() I play the shad, steering it out of the heavy current where it wants to go, and pluck it from the water at boatside. ![]()
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