Catching Threadfins For Crappie Bait?!?

[gabowman]

Has anybody been successful catching and using threadfin shad for bait in place of minnows when night fishing? If so, how do you hook 'em on the hook to keep 'em alive morem than a minute or two. Finally, is it really that much better than minnows making it worth the trouble? Curious to know :o .......

[FalconSmitty]

get a bait dealers net... get ready with it then cut your fishing lights after the shad have schooled around the light. Those shad will get disoriented and flutter on top of the water.. Just make a big S in the water with net and you have 100s. keep the water moving in your bucket to keep them longer but dead ones work great too.
Cut the lights back on right away. even while you are scooping them up... In an instant the shad are back and the fish still bite... I get plenty of bites before the light is back on... I guess when the shad go nuts the crappie have to get em..

[gabowman]

Smitty, is there a better place to hook the shad to keep 'em alive longer?!?

[FalconSmitty]

i use the eye.. works for me!
When the fry are around your lights try this... i put a regular minnow net,
the .99 cent kind, on a 3' --1/4" dowel. you can skim the little rascals up easy. I put them on a #4 hook in the eye. i just drop it down slow and get a fish before it settles. If not I I lift my rod a foot or two and lower it slowly again... I have sat beside people using minnows catching nothing while I reeled in one after another.

[CrappiePappy]

Has anybody been successful catching and using threadfin shad for bait in place of minnows when night fishing? If so, how do you hook 'em on the hook to keep 'em alive morem than a minute or two. Finally, is it really that much better than minnows making it worth the trouble? Curious to know :o .......

I've used a cast net to catch Shad ... even bought a 1/4" mesh one, so I could catch the little ones (<2"). My Grandparents, and their fishing friends, used to catch Shad, and Crappie fish with them. If the Shad died, or was too big, they'd cut them in half and use heads or tails :p .... and when using the "cut" ones, they'd just lift/drop their rods every now & then, to give the bait a little "action".
Most of the time, that I've used them, I just hook them thru the eye socket (like I do a regular minnow).
Keeping them alive, until you use them, is the biggest problem with Shad. You need a circular shaped tank/bucket, good circulation & aeration, and some "keep alive" chemicals (if you want to keep them alive for any length of time).
Threadfin Shad are less hardy than a Gizzard Shad, but either one can be a better bait than a minnow, at times. Only "other" baitfish species, that I know of, that "can be" better than a Shad ... is a Brook Silverside. But, catching them is a little more involved, than dipping Shad from under your nightstalking lights

...... cp

[FishnLine]

I bought an umbrella net to try. I've caught some crappie with pretty good sized shad in their mouths, so I wanted to give some a try. Let us know if you try it gabowman. I'm glad you brought it up.