Here lately I've begun to enjoy fishing with live bait as much or maybe
even a little more than using artificial... anyone else into live
bait?

At a local pond/reservoir thing here in Austin there's a ton of big
shad - most are usually 8 - 10" - I catch them in the cast net and use
a cork/egg sinker/swivel/leader hook-up and just wait for that cork to
dissappear - fun! When I first saw some guys using those big-ass shad I
was like "no way"... but after I caught a coupla 5 and 6 lb'ers I
changed my mind!

My boy likes it too... although he still has a hard time with the
corks moving all over the place :-) I keep teling him, "Just wait til
it goes UNDER!"