Fish Buffet on the Occoquan

This is a combined report from May 3rd & 4th.  Scott and I wanted to try the pools at the Occoquan fall-line to target shad with fly-rods and avoid the combat fishing at Falmouth flats.  We set out from Occoquan Regional Park and paddled upstream passing 6-8 boats targeting the channel.  We found the rocks pleasantly unoccupied and starting working the pools upstream of table-rock. A school of 14-16" shad had congregated and couldn't get much further up the river.  We began throwing chartreuse shad darts and silver clousers on 6-wts.  Scott used a sinking line and I weighed my leader with a few split-shot to get down in the current.  The fishing was great from the 3rd cast and we were quiet in our excitement to avoid several kayak anglers who were cozying up to us.  We found that by wading upstream we could throw into the pool and use the current to sweep the flies into the greatest number of fish.  Together we caught 15 shad in 90-minutes. Interestingly we saw two gents with compound bows, hunting/fishing for snakeheads immediately upstream of us in the rocks, they 'harvested' 3-4 good sized snakes.  
          

   The fishing was so good that Fritz, Jacob and I decided to return the next day.  We mirrored our approach and the three of us arrived at the table rock at about 0900.  Again the channel with filled with fishing boats, but we had the best spot (tablerock) to ourselves.  We surveyed the hole and through the shimmering surface could make out the outlines of swarming fish.  We positioned Jacob in the prime spot and started laying into fish.  Interestingly, the shad were not there in the same numbers and the fish swarming were actually carp!  The first fish Jacob caught on a standard 1.25 inch silver shad spoon was a large, gorgeous catfish!  It was the healthiest cat I've seen and it gave Jacob a great fight, it must have been 17-18 inches long.  We took turns in the prime spot and each hooked a fish or three!  The next fish caught was a large carp which gave Fritz a five minute fight and was not happy about the fly buried in his jaw.   We'd never seen carp in a feeding mode and it was exciting.  Fritz' carp was + 20 inches and thick as a football, an awesome fish.  I jumped in the hot spot and quickly hooked-up hoping for a shad only to pull in a 15-inch large mouth bass!  The diversity was incredible.  We continued fishing on and around table rock and pulled in several more carp and shad.  What a great trip. See video of Fritz fighting the carp.