shad

[Rookie1]

anybody ever used shad to fish for crappie? Where I fish I can net more bait than I could use. i don't mean striper bait, I mean small shad around 2"

[FishCrazed]

While cleaning a 1.7lber this past Saturday I noticed its stomach very swollen, opening it up with the fillet knife and what do you know, 2 2" shad. That is their natural forage on my home waters so I don't see why they would work.

What's the rest of youins think?

[crappster]

I have had one experience fishing with shad for crappie. We netted a bunch that were closer to 3 inches than 2 inches. This was on West Point. We had been fishing certain bridge pilings and the fishing was slow. We followed some pods of shad up into a couple of coves and caught a few bass underneath them. I had my castnet with me so I chunked a couple times and ended up with over a hundred shad. We went back to the bridge pilings and proceeded to drop the shad down. We got hits in a matter of five seconds evertime we dropped one down. Problem was the shad were too big. We managed about 6 crappie and that was only because they were around 1.5 pounds each. Anything smaller than that couldn't inhale the shad. Nevertheless it was amazing how agressive they were towards the shad. Find some that are 2 inches or less and I really think you could hammer them. The is pretty much there mainstay food in reservoirs.

[Tim The Lippa Rippa Mon]

They will work great, but they can be a real bugger to keep alive. They need tons of oxygen, and stable temps too. <,"}/>{ Rippa

[David Waters]

keeping them alive would be the hardest thing about fishing with them. I am always seeing shad in the crappie I clean. I very rarely find a rosy red

[Rookie1]

keeping them alive would be the hardest thing about fishing with them. I am always seeing shad in the crappie I clean. I very rarely find a rosy red

Thanks for the input guys, I've got a bait tank I use to keep them in when I striper fish. I'l use that to keep them alive, but they aren't too bad in the winter, they're a pain in the summer when the water's warm. Thanks again guys!!

[crappieseeker]

I use to Bass fish with them and hooked the biggest crappie I ever hooked on one, the only bad thing is, the fish broke water and got off before I could get it in. Just my luck.