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Shad tanks and filters are a necessity for shad. It's not lack of oxygenated water or temperature that kills them its the loose shad scales that get in their gills and suffocate them. That's why guides and striper fishermen use rounded bait tanks with recirculating pumps that continually re-circulate the water through a filter that catches the loose shad scales. The round tank keeps the from injuring themselves. You can build a home made filter for about anything including live wells. Foam filters that are washable work well.
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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?
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Slime you are seeing is actually oil produced from the shad. Shad has oil glands in their heads and produce more oil in warmer water. We all use a fine salt in our tanks to keep the shad healthier. Also use it with minnows / shiners. Bait stays a lot more active and healthier with salt added. I buy a fine stock salt in a 25 lb bag at our local Atwoods for around 4.00 that lasts a couple years.
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Do you mean like that “spermaceti oil” in whale heads?
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Shad shad are killer on crappie around bridges
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Great debate / info here. My local crappie lake just closed earlier this week, but I will definitely net some shad and give it a try when all of this pandemic craziness goes down. Thanks for all of the tips. Stay safe and tight lines!
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I used to make two or three trips to Dale Hollow Tenn. every fall and we would string a seine across a boat slip with a rock in the middle of the seine to hold the center down.. the edge of the seine would be just a couple of inches above the water. we then would hang a bright light over the center of the seine and leave it over night.. every morning there would be a couple dozen shad in the net...great bait for big crappie and smallmouth.. we would also hang lanterns over the side of our docked boat at night and bring in big schools of shad then snag the little shad with a small treble hook and then let the shad sink down below the school and catch big crappie about 10 or 15 feet below the school of shad