You're bound to find the path. When you catch fish, note where you're anchored and record your location in a notebook. Look around you. Such information will be invaluable in future seasons. But it's not the only way to catch them.
Many anglers troll in some of the upper river's broad, deep pools.
Others will locate boulders in the river and anchor behind or slightly above and off to one side of them, hoping to bump into shad that use the slack water behind the huge rocks as pit stops. A similar strategy is to fish behind an island, anchoring at the point where the split river becomes one again. Often shad will home in on the current that's formed when the split stream meets, following it until they're forced to decide which side of the island they'll ascend. These are strategies to follow when the fish are migrating. The most important aspect of fishing for spawning shad is to correspond your outings with the fish' periods of activity.