Fishing with live shad for bass?

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!"

When I take kids out or somebody who I really want to see catch fish, Ill
set them up balloon rigging live minnows. I have caught crappie with shad
as large as 5" and no size shad is too big for bassing. I've caught bass
that were only six or seven inches long on shad that measured four.

--
** Public Fishing and Boating Forums
** www.YumaBassMan.com


wrote in message
oups.com...
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!"

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...

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.

--
** Public Fishing and Boating Forums
** www.YumaBassMan.com


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...

When I take the kids out sometimes I bring a bucket of minnows. I hook them
through the back but you need to be careful when hooking them there, you can
kill them pretty quick. Another thing I do is snip part of the tail off on
an angle. The minnows tend to swim erratically, it tends to trigger more
strikes in my opinion They swim in a circle, it seems to disturb gamefish
easily. I also rarely use a bobber
"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
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.

--
** Public Fishing and Boating Forums
** www.YumaBassMan.com


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...

"alwaysfishking" wrote in message
...

When I take the kids out sometimes I bring a bucket of minnows. I hook
them
through the back but you need to be careful when hooking them there, you
can
kill them pretty quick. Another thing I do is snip part of the tail off on
an angle. The minnows tend to swim erratically, it tends to trigger more
strikes in my opinion They swim in a circle, it seems to disturb gamefish
easily. I also rarely use a bobber

I almost never use a bobber, but I will use a split shotsoemtimes to force
them down if they aren't hitting higher up. If I need a float to force them
to suspend I'll use a semi inflated water balloon since it barely splashes
when it hits the water.

--
** Public Fishing and Boating Forums
** www.YumaBassMan.com


"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
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.

--
** Public Fishing and Boating Forums
** www.YumaBassMan.com


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...