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Was at Willard last night 7-23-18 at seven a boil outside of the south marina and caught a few wipers out of it but they was all a younger class 10" to 12" . After dark I threw out my cast net and found hundreds of small dime size gizzard shad in each netting, I was quite surprised due to the fact that last week there was nothing that size in my cast netting and these where thick in the south marina... so I guess there is another hatch of gizzard shad coming on now..
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If I were guessing, I'd say this was a third hatch. I've been seeing two different sized baby shad for over a month now and the other day I noticed those smaller ones too. I think the same thing happened last year too.
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Your 100% correct I have seen 3 different sizes. This one is much larger in numbers then what the other ones.
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So good size wipers next year? Just hard to catch this year at this time of year? I had surgery, so haven't been fishing for about going on 2 months. [fishon]
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Don't count on it being better sized wipers next year, likely more of the same as this year. Wipers have reached their max size in Willard, it just is not deep enough to grow them any larger than we see now, but after going through the Winter with all these shad, they should be fatter next year, just as they were this year. Because the DWR has been stocking fewer wipers than in years past, not much will change. IMO most of the bigger wipers get caught every year and that leaves a few carry overs and the crop that being caught now that are 12 inchers. Good luck with your recovery, don't feel like you missed anything at Willard, it has been very slow for everything but catfish.
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[#0000FF]I am attaching a section on gizzard shad from my larger writeup on Willard Bay. It was put together with a lot of help from Chris Penne...DWR biologist for Willard Bay...and with a bit of online research.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Gizzard shad can start spawning as early as April and the spawn may extend for six weeks or longer when water temps remain in the ideal range. That means that there can be shad fry of all sizes by the end of summer and going into fall. However, the later hatches are usually doomed to die off in the cooling waters of fall because their food supply (plankton) is reduced in cold water. Older hatchlings have converted their physiology to be able to live on other things...but even older and larger shad do experience some winter dieoffs.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]By the end of October or early November, my early morning trips on Willard usually see lots of tiny shadlets (late hatches) floating on the surface or washed up along the beaches. The terns and gulls clean them up pretty fast as soon as it is light, so late arriving anglers seldom see that. But cats, crappies and other fish that feed on the smaller shad are usually stuffed with them for a few weeks.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Some smaller shad survive to feed the predators under the ice...for a while. But the young ones grow fast and may reach 5-7 inches by the end of their summer growth cycle...too large for all but the largest walleyes, wipers and catfish. However, by the end of winter there are usually no shad in the system small enough for those that eat them...and there are a few lean months until a new crop of shad is available. During that time the predators live on logperch, spottail shiners, crawdads, midge larvae and the young of all other species in the lake...including baby catfish, crappies, perch, smallmouth bass and bluegills.
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