Yep, those shad sluff-off a tremendous amount of scales and slime in the summer, substantially less in the fall and winter. They die a lot quicker in bait tanks in the summer than the winter too, but they live and thrive in the same summer water in lakes and rivers and don’t sluff off scales and die.
I can see where all those loose scales floating around in bait tanks are such a killer in the summer, just chokes those little buggers.
Why do the scales flake off so much more in the summer and they produce more slime in bait tank than any other time of the year? Why do you think shad do that?