MYSTERIOUS FISH DELIGHT ANGLERS; HICKORY SHAD ARE A FUN CATCH.

Byline: Conrad Grove Philadelphia Inquirer 

The fishing would not kick in for hours, but the anglers were jockeying for the few parking places along a top-shelf stretch of Deer Creek, intent on intercepting the thousands of hickory shad making their three-mile spring spawning run after fattening in the Atlantic Ocean.

After an absence of decades, the hickory shad - a scrappy acrobat that often takes eye-high flight when hooked - began migrating up Deer Creek in droves four years ago. No one knows exactly why.

``Nature tends to run in cycles, and this is an upswing we just don't understand yet,'' said Rudy Lukacovic, a fisheries biologist for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources. ``It's very much a mystery fish right now.''

To the delight of light-tackle anglers, there is little mystery about the draw provided by this smaller version of its cousin, the American shad, the largest member of the herring family.

Fifty-fish mornings and evenings, the times when the silver-sided hickories are most apt to strike, are not uncommon, especially for wading anglers with spin-fishing equipment at the mouth of the 45-foot-wide creek, which empties into the south side of the Susquehanna River just below the Cgnowingo Dam.

At the creek's mouth, the anglers with spinning rods tangled with each other's lines - and with multitudes of fish. The fly-rodders shared no such largesse.

All could hear muttering downstream, where a cranky old angler had taken up residence, enamored with his own false casting. All silently noted that victory comes quicker to those who keep their lines in the water and not in the air.

Angler Bob Smith hooked one but lost it.

``Fine by me,'' he said. ``You can't measure success by how many fish you catch, but by the number of cranky old guys you can avoid.''

Buoyed by rising numbers of hickory shad in Deer Creek, Maryland officially opened the fishery last year after a 15-year moratorium spurred by stocks that seemed to have largely disappeared.

Catch-and-release is mandatory. The hickory was never considered a food fish. Those who have sampled its bony flesh liken the experience to eating a hairbrush.

The hickories, reaching lengths of 14 to 20 inches over their roughly eight-year life spans, weigh between one and three pounds. By comparison, American shad can grow to more than eight pounds. But hickories seek smaller tributaries in which to spawn, and the Deer Creek run lasts from the end of March to mid-May.

Just what sparked their rebound is not known. What state biologists did determine in a study last year was that the hickory is one tough customer.

Eight volunteers, including several from the Free State Fly Fishers, caught 180 shad, which Lukacovic placed in holding tanks for 48 hours to assess hooking mortality. None died.

Angler success is largely governed by water temperature, and the balky weather of this spring has usually kept Deer Creek at below 55 degrees, the minimum at which hickories seem inclined to strike. Hickories are extremely sensitive to light - again, no one has figured out why - and most strikes occur from dawn until mid-morning, and from late afternoon into darkness.

``Maybe they strike lures or flies out of aggression,'' Lukacovic said. ``I hate to sound like a broken record, but we just don't know.''

The cranky old guy was nowhere to be found on Deer Creek the next day.

Had he been there, he would have seen Wayne Blottenberger of nearby Churchville bring to hand several hickories during the brightest time of the day, the time it is not supposed to happen.

Blottenberger, a technical engineer for Bell Atlantic, and Joe Bruce, the owner of The Fisherman's Edge tackle shop in Baltimore, both participated in last year's hooking-mortality study. Both advise fly-rodders accustomed to the caution of trout to forget worries about drag, in which the fly moves at an unnatural pace in the current.

``The secret is to let the fly swing and pick up speed,'' said Bruce, who took 61 hickories one warm morning early this month. ``These fish might not eat, but they can be triggered into a feeding frenzy by movement.''

Blottenberger, meanwhile, offered his own tips to two first-timers from central Pennsylvania and a third from Virginia: Use brightly colored flies in combinations of red and yellow, or of chartreuse and white, and bounce them close to the bottom.

Blottenberger left for work just as the afternoon crowds began to arrive, just before the fishing was supposed to kick in, which it never really did. But he did deliver one more footnote.

``Remember,'' he told the newcomers, ``this is a social fishery. If you need to be by yourself, this isn't the place for you.''

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Photo

Photo: A fisherman wades out into Maryland's Deer Creek to fish for hickory shad in the contrasting light and shadows of a late-afternoon sun.

William Steinmetz / Philadelphia Inquirer