[gentle orchestral fanfare] [laughing] - And I've got a fairly firm drag on that fish, too.

- These fish are such great fightin' fish.

- Yeah.

- They are such excellent, excellent sport fish.

- I don't wanna put too much on and then pull the hook out of his mouth.

Boy you don't think a big ol' king mackerel will come up and eat that thing, do you?

[laughing] All right I'll swing him over here to you.

- All right.

All right, good job, Stu.

- All right.

- Excellent.

- All right.

You got him?

- Yeah.

- On the dart, we're figuring it out.

- Now this is the fun part.

- Great little fish.

- [Announcer] The production of Carolina Outdoor Journal is made possible in part by: - [Female Announcer] Wildlife in North Carolina Magazine.

ncwildlife.org/winc.

- [Male Announcer] And by EZ Bait and Tackle, family owned and operated.

We've been fishing since 2003.

Come see the crew in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and we can hook you up for all your fishing needs.

[light instrumental music] ♪ - Hello, welcome to the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

Today's program will take us down to the Cape Fear River where we're gonna be fishing for shad and we had a big time.

- We did, we had a great day actually.

We were a little early for the run, we were actually targeting the white shad which is Cape Fear is really known for the white shad and most recently the hickory shad population has been on the rebound and there are good numbers of hickory shad callin' that river now too but like number one, the dam that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dam, first of three dams on the river, is where we were fishing that day and just had a lot of fun, caught some nice fish and just had a great spring day.

- There's not a lot of high tech equipment we need when we go shad fishing, we'll talk about that on your time too.

- Right, the guys will share with us pretty much the shad darts, shad spoon configuration, you can go combo or you can go single.

The big dart and I believe the chartreuse color is what we used that day that really caught the fish's attention.

- And Donna's making my favorite kind of corn bread.

I'm excited about this one now.

- Add a little bit of onion to it and it really is a tasty recipe.

- There's no question about that.

Let's get right to it, we've got a lot coming your way today on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- Stuart, we're sittin' right here below lock and dam number one, it's late March, it's prime shad fishin' season.

Most of the hickory shad have already moved through but the American shad have sure been here for the past few days.

- That's right, we got a current flow coming out, got a good flow, they're kinda hangin' right here in the little eddies behind the flow of the dam here and just kind of work your little shad darts through there, steady little pace and kind of let 'em sink a little more, sometimes keep 'em up a little higher and we should pick a couple of these big ol' Americans out of here.

- It seems hit or miss, you know, the fish kind of come and go but when they start bitin', we sure get bit pretty often so I'm lookin' forward to a great day.

- Man, when they bite on this light tag, I'll tell you this... - Yeah, you can't beat it.

- It's a lot of fun when you hook a nice one on here.

- Ya can't beat it.

- That's right.

Let's see if we can't get one.

- That's right.

- Great job, Stu.

- All right.

- Let me get out of your way here.

- There we go, look at that thing bein'... God, this is a nice one.

Big ol' shad.

- That's a nice first fish of the day.

- Look at that.

Oh, oh.

- That's a really, really nice fish.

- He jumped off.

- Oh well.

- That's all right.

- Now we call that a quick release.

- That's right.

We'll talk that one.

That aren't bad for the first one.

- There's more in there.

- All right, check my rig over once and we'll go from there.

All right, we're ready to roll.

- Now how deep were you?

- Man I was just reelin'.

- Okay.

- I just kinda crank out and just was just crankin' through.

God.

- There he is.

Where'd that fish hit?

- Way out there in the middle.

- No kidding.

- Here he comes.

- Right out there in the deep current.

- Here he comes.

Yeah he was way out over here in the current.

Here we go.

Got an American or a hickory on here, let's see what we got.

- I think that's an American.

- He hit on the dart.

- Did he hit on?

- Yeah.

- Yep, he sure did.

- One of these light rods, I mean, I swear.

[laughing] And I've got a fairly firm drag on that fish, too.

- These fish are such great fightin' fish.

- Yeah.

- They are such excellent, excellent sport fish.

- I don't want to put too much on and then pull the hook out of his mouth.

Boy you don't think a big ol' king mackerel will come up and eat that thing do you?

[laughing] All right, I'll swing him over here to you.

- All right.

All right, good job, Stu.

- All right.

- Excellent.

- All right.

You got him?

- Yeah.

- On the dart, we're figuring it out.

- Now this is the fun part.

- Great little fish.

- Trying to hold him.

- Quick release.

- All right.

We'll take it.

- All right.

- All right, good job, good job.

Now it's my turn.

- That's right.

I'm gonna go right back out there in the same spot.

Let's see.

- Now it's my turn.

- Let's see if there's another one out there.

And all I was doin' was just cracking it in, he was rather high in the water.

- Was he?

- Yeah.

Sure was.

Oh yeah.

- There he is.

- Oh yeah.

- Now that... - Ooh.

- Let's do that fish.

- Yeah.

[laughing] - That fish was right here at the boat.

- I love it.

He was right here at the boat.

- Yeah.

He was literally right on that current seam.

- And then he decided to go out that way.

That was great.

Look at the, man that's a nice one.

- That's a nice fish right there.

- That's a nice one right there.

- I think that's a nice fish.

That is a nice fish.

Since you caught one on that white and green dart, I put two of 'em on this time since that seemed to be the... - God them things fight good.

- The dart of choice.

- That's a nice one there, look at the size of that fish, look at that.

Got him.

- All right.

- Yeah.

Look at that big ol' thing.

- Look at that pretty fish.

- Look at that, look at the purple on his colors right there.

All right, there you go, grab him out of there.

Oh yeah.

Look at that fish.

- I'll say that's a decent fish right there.

- You aren't lyin'.

- Nothing wrong with that fish at all.

- Look at that.

- That's right.

- That's what we like to see.

- Yep.

- God.

- Nothing wrong with that fish at all.

- What a great fight on this light rod.

Mm.

Look at the purple on that thing.

- I know.

- That is a pretty fish right there.

- All right, buddy, thanks.

- There you go.

Yeah.

I love it.

- Good, good, I love it.

- I know.

- Love it, love it.

- God he burned some drag on that one didn't he?

- Let's see if there's another one in there.

- That's right.

Oh, Walker, there you go, buddy.

- Right in that current seam.

- Right in the current break.

God.

Look at that little thing out there, man.

God they just dig in that current.

- I know they do.

- They turn that body side to you and... God.

- I don't think he's done quite yet.

- I know, I can feel this.

Oh he's barely hooked.

He is barely hooked, Walker.

- Slip him over here and I'll... - I'm trying to.

There we go.

- There we go.

- All right.

- Good job.

- There we go.

Perfect.

There's that beauty old dart right in the side of the mouth.

God.

Well I thought I didn't have him hooked very well but I guess... - I think you had him hooked pretty damn well.

There we go.

- All right.

- He slid out.

Not a bad fish at all.

- Let me touch him real quick.

Look at the color on him.

- I know.

- Look at the way they flow that color down.

- Really brilliant iridescent.

- God.

Look at the mouth, they really god a big mouth on 'em.

- They do.

All right, buddy.

- All right, big fella.

Let's let you roll back and fist bone and put a million more of you out there.

- There you go.

- There we go.

- No worse for the experience.

- No, no, not at all.

Thank you for the net job.

- You bet, you bet.

[lively music] - You know, Walker, I've been throwin', pickin' up most of my fish when I've been throwin' up into the current and bringin' it back to 'em and I think that's kind of telling me that these fish are layin' facin' up into this current.

- I think they are, I think they're layin' right on this edge, you've got really swift current 30 feet out there but you've got almost no current.

In fact, this is a little eddie where the current's actually flowin' up towards the dam right here where we're sittin' and I think they're laying facin' up river but right out of the current, that seems to be where you're gettin' bit.

- Right along that seam right there.

- Yep, right.

- You can almost see it, there's a little seam and when you come through there, that's where they tend to be sittin'.

- Yep.

- Let's bring these little darts in their face and they can't stand it.

- I know.

- I can't stand it either.

[laughing] This is kind of nice.

You can kick back and put your feet up.

[laughing] Got us a nice one, Walker.

Look at him goin' all the way around the boat.

God, look at this one.

- Look at that fish.

- I think he is, I think we might be able to get him here.

Looks like he's wantin' to... - All right.

- Here you go, I'll try to drag him to you.

- Swim him over here.

- God.

- Those darts slid right out of that fish's mouth.

Strange.

Weird thing about these shad is they don't really have a good handle.

- No they don't, there we go.

Look at that.

- That's when a Boga Grip comes in.

- Look at that thing.

- Look at this fish.

- God.

- That is a pretty fish right there.

- That's the biggest one yet.

- That is the biggest one of the day and that is a beautiful, beautiful shad.

- God.

Man, have something pull like that at the end of March.

- It took us all the way around the boat.

[laughing] - We'll take that any day right there.

- All right.

- Let me get that out your way.

- He's ready to go.

- There we go.

- There he goes.

- Awesome.

- Good job, Captain Stu.

- Thank you, sir.

- Good job, buddy.

- Good air, WG.

All right.

What were you doin', taking a sip of drink?

- I just sat down to take a little sip of water and... - That's usually how it happens, isn't it?

- He jumped all over it.

Yes, sir.

- I love it.

Get something to drink.

- Yeah.

- Snack on that, something like that, that's usually when you get the bot.

- This is another really nice fish here.

- Oh my goodness.

- That is a, that's a pretty fish.

- Look at the size, look at that, look at how thick that thing is.

- That's another pretty fish.

- Ugh.

That's a nice one right there, buddy.

- Hey, that fish hit the plastic.

- He hit the plastic?

- Yeah.

- That fish is on the plastic.

- God look at the size of that one.

- That fish is on the plastic.

- Here, buddy.

Cool.

- Look at that.

I think that might have to be... - That's the biggest one yet.

- Have to be the biggest one of the day.

- I think it is.

- If I do say so myself.

- All right.

Let me see if I can hold him down.

Let's see what we got here.

- He's all in the net but that fish hit that little plastic curly tail grub.

I added a little plastic curly tail trailer to mine to give it a little extra weight and get it down, it seems that the fish are holding it a little bit further down in this swift current.

You need a little weight to get it down to the fish and so... - Yeah I think once that sun kind of warms this water up a little bit here, early afternoon.

- Mm-hmm.

- They'll probably move up to the surface a little bit more and they'll probably bite a little more readily up top but right now they do seem to be a little deeper.

- The past couple of days, we've found that they've been high in the water column, low in the water column, it's just a matter of figuring it out.

- Seems like a big wave of fish moves in and everybody hooks up and wave moves out, then another one moves in and everybody hooks up and you just have to be here when the next big ball of fish moves in.

- I know.

- Just a matter of sittin' and waitin' on 'em.

- A lot of folks overlook these fish in the springtime as a sport fish and don't bother shad fish but what a great, great sport fish.

- Man I don't know why 'cause look how hard these things pull.

- Just fantastic.

- I mean look at that.

- You know down on the coast, things are just now turning on but god, what a great way to come and spend a day.

- Oh you can come up here and catch 30 of these.

Ya know, I mean.

- He's takin' off.

- God, he's just diggin' and diggin'.

There we go.

- There he is.

- All right.

What can I do for ya?

- Here we go.

- All right.

- Jig log right, lodged right there in the corner of his mouth, where it oughta be.

- Perfect, all right.

- And it just flipped right out.

- Like usual, that's perfect.

- Yep.

- Nice release.

Look at that little thing.

- That's a pretty little Cape Fear shad.

- That is pretty right there, I swear.

- Yep.

- You know you can come up here, they're aggressive, they hit hard, there's no doubt when they bite.

- I know.

It's an easy way to spend a day and a great way.

- And you don't need a big old boat to come do it.

Got you a little john boat, come up here and have a great day.

- Good job, man.

- Thank you.

- Good job, good job.

And he came from right up there towards the dam.

- Right up in the seam right there.

- Joe, we had a good day, got there a little early but all in all, it was a good day of fishin'.

- Yeah, it was a little early, the fishing, they'd been catching a few fish, we heard some early reports that they has a couple of good days, like a week before we were there but we ended up catching, I think it was 16 fish that day which is a good day with white shad and no real big white shad, you know they get as big as six, seven pounds and nothing quite that large but just nonetheless had a good day.

- Well let's talk about some of the gear we used, let's go to gear time.

[lively music] - Stuart, you couldn't ask for a more beautiful day on the Cape Fear River.

We're sittin' just below lock and dam number one.

It's about 70 degrees, blue sky, light wind and most of all, the shad were bitin' today.

- And it's so great out here and I love comin' up here and catchin' these fish and gettin' from two to six pounds if you get you a big one.

Something that really is gonna make 'em fun is to have a nice light outfit for 'em.

We're using some Quantum PT and a 10 size reel, a Quantum extra light rod and a four to eight pound class and then we're stringin' it up with some suffix braid that is a eight pound class outfit so match the outfit to the fish and you'll have a good time especially when they're diggin' in that current.

- That's true, one of the things we had to figure out today was where the fish were sitting in the current, were they high in the water column or were they low?

Were they on the seams or were they out in the current?

After we figured out the pattern today, we caught a bunch of fish.

- That's right and it also took us figuring out what baits they wanted today.

- Absolutely, yeah.

- We had to figure out did they want the pink baits or did they want white or did they want chartreuse and today it seems like this chartreuse and white shad dart with a little mister twister curly tail up here in front of it, that seemed to be the combo, that little bit of metal flake and that curly tail would kinda call 'em up and then they'd come in there and pile on the shad dart.

- That seemed to work perfectly, we tried a lot of different patterns, that's the one that caught the fish though.

- That's right and we just got here and got below the dam, put it out in the current, slow crank it back up right into the seam, right into the eddie and as soon as you got in the eddie, they felt that thing.

- You couldn't ask for a better late March fish to pursue, the shad were fantastic, they're excellent on light tackle and this was just a perfect day.

- Yeah, you gotta love it, sunny day, been copped up all winter long, it's 70 degrees, you get to get out of the office and just come out here and enjoy it, catch some nice fish on light tackle.

- Great way to dust off the equipment.

- That's right.

- I enjoyed it, thanks for having me and I hope we get to do it again.

- I'll have you anytime, man.

- Thank you.

- Let me know when you're ready to go.

- Thank you.

- Thanks, guys, for that valuable information.

Now let's catch up with Donna, she's in the kitchen makin' my favorite kind of cornbread, just add a little sweet onion to it, here's a recipe that you'll want to take some notes on today.

[lively music] - Hi, today, we're going to be making a sweet onion cornbread in the kitchen and we're gonna start out with about 1/4 cup of butter and I like to use butter but you need to make sure that you don't heat it at too high of a temperature, it will scorch but butter just adds some great flavor.

We're going to add in one sweet onion that we have chopped and I just kindly have course chopped mine, I didn't really do it a fine chop.

If you don't want that texture in your cornbread, go ahead and chop it a little bit finer and you can also use a food processor if you want 'cause we are cooking, gonna chop quite a few onions or they come pretty big so, like I said, I like mine kind of to have some texture in it.

And this is gonna be more of a spoon bread consistency so it's gonna be a little bit moister than maybe some of the cornbread that you're used to.

We're gonna saute this for about five minutes just until your onions begin to get soft, you don't want to brown 'em or caramelize 'em like some of the other recipes call for so just keep stirring this.

We're just gonna ahead and move on 'cause we don't have the five minutes here but pretend that we've got our five minutes, these are getting nice and soft and kind of translucent.

So we're going to go ahead and start and remember, these will cook just a little bit more 'cause they're hot, too, so we're gonna turn off our heat or if you have electric, you're gonna move, remove it from the heat, we're gonna add in one package of cornbread, buttermilk cornbread mixture mix to it so you have all your leavening and everything in here, we're also going to add in about 1/4 cup of shredded cheese and stir that together and then we're gonna add in our wet ingredients to this so what I like to do, I like to coat my onions with my dry ingredients, that way it is dispersed out, it's not gonna be in clumps and then we're going to add about 1/3 cup of milk, one egg that has been lightly beaten and then we're going to add in one cup of sour cream.

So you can tell already by the ingredients, this is gonna be just really, it's gonna have some great taste to it, some great flavors going on.

We can also add in some dill to this, I like to use some fresh dill or if you want to spice it up a little bit, you could use some ground red pepper would be good, too, if you like to have a little spicy cornbread.

So we're gonna mix all that together, put in our little dill and then we're going to put it in a nine inch square or an eight inch square baking dish that you coated with nonstick coating.

If you have an eight inch round cast iron skillet that you like to cook your cornbread in, that'll be great as well so we're gonna do that.

We're gonna cook that at about 400 degrees for about 25 minutes until it's cooked in the middle.

Bring it out, top it with about the remaining 1/2 cup of shredded cheese, put it back in for about five more minutes just to melt that cheese and brown it up and you're ready to go.

This is what it looks like when it comes out.

We cut ours just kind of in some triangles.

You can cut it in squares, you can dish it out 'cause like I said, it's gonna be a little bit moister than what you're used to probably.

So I hope you enjoy this sweet onion cornbread and I look forward to seeing you next time here on Simple Cooking.

- Thank you, Donna, that's one of my favorite recipes, a little cornbread with sweet onions always good to me.

Joe, tell me about Robin Hall.

- Yeah, Robin is the lockmaster at lock number on on the Cape Fear, he's been there 19 years and knows that area very well, he's been responsible, I think, 'cause I've heard a lot about his work on the river in conjunction with the sea grant program that's been ongoing to help those fish as they come in the river go up the river.

He opens the locks up three times a day, five days a week which allows the fish to go on up.

There's three, actually three dams on the river and those fish have to go through these areas to get to their spawning areas.

These are anadromous fish, they come in from the ocean every year to spawn so the have to have some help to get to these areas and so Robin has been instrumental in making that happen and so I'd just like to mention that he has put a lot of effort and time into making it happen and as you saw, we've got a world class fishery there, the white shad have been the noted species in that river for years.

The hickory shad have come back in good numbers recently and so you can catch both shad at that location.

- We certainly do thank Robin for all his hard work.

- Absolutely.

- For Joe Albea, I'm John Moore, thanks for joining us today on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- [Announcer] Make sure to visit our website for more information.

- [Announcer] The production of Carolina Outdoor Journal is made possible in part by: - [Female Announcer] Wildlife in North Carolina Magazine.

ncwildlife.org/winc.

- [Male Announcer] And by EZ Bait and Tackle, family owned and operated.

We've been fishing since 2003.

Come see the crew in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and we can hook you up for all your fishing needs.

[light instrumental music] ♪