"Jeff" wrote in
:

I use small shad often Catfishing and had never caught one other than
Cast Netting until last week. I was fishing in the Tennessee River for
crappie using minnows and jig when I noticed as I was bringing my line
in, bright shiny larger fish that werent crappie were chasing it to
the top, flipping up and diving. I slowed down bringing my line in and
started catching Shad, average about 10 inches long. I asked someone
if they ate Shad and they said Shad was a junk fish, good for nothing
but bait. But I recalled that General Pickett and F.H. Lee were at a
Shad Bake when their units were attacked at Five Forks. I googled it
and found out that Shad Bakes are and have been a big deal in the
southeast US for hundreds of years. So, has anyone HERE ever eaten a
Shad? What is your opinion of it?



we have shad runs in the pacific north west coastal rivers. They're non-
native and so they want you to catch as many as possible (no limits), as
they cause trouble eating salmon fry or something.

Anyway, we caught a shadload of them one time and put them in the smoker
-- for a light smoke, and then canned them like you would tuna. That
made the bones soft, and they were pretty damn good. Make sandwitches
out of them, or in any other place you'd use tuna. On crackers with
cheese.. pretty taisty. Like other here most people said you couldn't
make em taste good but we did.

-z