The “old timers” around Beaufort, Pamlico and Craven Counties have a saying, “When the Bradford Pear Trees are bloomin’, the shad should be runnin’ on the rivers.” It’s uncanny just how often this age-old saying holds true.

When a friend called to tell me that the shad were being caught on the Pitch Kettle a few days ago, I grabbed a few ultra lightweight-spinning rods and started to get the boat ready to pay a visit to this favorite fishing hole off the Neuse River between New Bern and Vanceboro.

As sure as spring tolls around every year, these anadromous fish (fish that live in the ocean and migrate up into freshwater streams to spawn every year) enter our coastal streams on their annual visit into the headwaters of North Carolina’s coastal rivers, such as the Cape Fear, Neuse, Tar/Pamlico and Roanoke Rivers, to breed.

These spawning runs typically begin earlier in the more southern rivers of our state (the Cape Fear for instance), as the weather warms move northward along the coast into finally the Roanoke River. There are several species of these herring-like fishes that utilize our coastal streams every spring: the herring (alewives to some), the hickory and the white shads we commonly see around this time.

Since the herring are the smallest of this family of fishes and are very scarce these days, few fishermen try specifically for these fish. What does get the angler’s attention however are the hickory and white (American) shad.

Hickory shad are the ones most angers fish for at this time of the year. They’re not particularly large fish. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission keeps the records for freshwater fishes and list the state record for white (American) shad as weighing 7-pounds, 15-ounces. The N.C. Record hickory shad weighed 4-pounds, 1-ounce and was taken from the Pitch Kettle area of the Neuse River.

Given the average size of these fish, light to medium spinning rods or fly rods are adequate to fight these fish to the boat (or bank). Don’t think that these fish aren’t good fighters though. Remember that they’ve spent most of their lives in the Atlantic Ocean and they’re often described as “fighting like a small tarpon,” a giant-sized close relative of the herring-like fishes. On light tackle, both species of the shad that are currently running along our coastal streams are very sporting fish.

There is no size restriction on these shad, but the creel limit is 10 shad (combined white and hickory) per angler per day, except on the Roanoke River below the dam at the Roanoke Rapids Dam, where creel limit is only one white shad per day. No white shad should be possessed in the lakes above this dam on the Roanoke River.

It’s good to know that a good number of large white shad are taken every year from the Tar River in the Rocky Mount area. No reports are available from this area at this time, but with all the rain we’ve been having and with the water along most coastal streams, conditions are good for fishermen to take some nice white shad along the Tar River.

White shad are considered by many seafood lovers to be quite good to eat when prepared in such a way to render the many small bones of this fish edible. On the other hand, the roe from both the white and hickory shad are delicious.