I always thought the shad trying to swim away stimulated the bass to strike.
They are dragging a line and whatever else you have on your line so there is
no chance of them outdistancing the bass. I like to hook them through the
lips, but if strikes are slow I'll put the hook in the mouth and out one eye
socket to make them last longer. A couple times when I have been loosing
bait without hooking up I have switched to tail hooking and started nailing
them. Don't need to to that very often. Bass slurp down minnows so quickly
its rarely and issue. Since I rarely if ever keep a bass what is an issue
is making sure you set the hook quickly enough to keep from gut hooking
them.

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wrote in message
ups.com...
We went out for a little while this evening and I caught one about 3 on
a 6 or 7" shad... what I hate most about them is they don;t stay
alive very long.... the guy that got me into using them showed me how
to hook then throught the eyes - they seem to last longer, and in his
opinion, doing so in essence blinded the shad so they won't see the
bass approaching.... eh, I guess so... I was hooking them in the
back before then and theyed poop out a lot faster though...