ranger690, one of my favorite fish for sure. trust me when I say you have to be pretty lucky to be out there at the right time and place to find them spawning, and stumble across that spot because there can be 150 citation shellcrackers in a place the size of your bathroom. a little to the left or right and you get nothing. anyway red wigglers or euro redworms are great bait, crawlers work but not as good. most the time it is best to fish right on the bottom. If I find them 12 feet deep which is common I use a size 4 or 2 crappie minnow hook thin wire with 2 or 3 splitshot up the line about 3 feet, put a decent gob of redworms on the hook, I have put 3 on there if they are skinny and small, 2 is a good average for decent size redworms. If they are shallow use a foam cigar floatwith the hollow tube, and then the split shots and hook like I said, no bobber stop, so the bait goes to the bottom no matter the depth and you just watch the float laying there on it's side, you will see movement of the float when there is a bite. of course you can use a regular bobber rig if have a spot where you know how deep it is, just set the depth where you are within a foot of the bottom, that works too, if you find a spot where you are catching 12oz. fish, start fishing out from there where it drops off deeper there could be a pod of heavier fish there, and this is commomly the case. remember you don't have to find them spawning to fill the cooler, you just need to find where they are feeding.they can be scattered along a shoreline one here and one there, or they may be feeding in 13 fow around some stumps or debris, one thing that I have noticed, when you find them deeper like that there is usually debris and wood down there and they will wrap you up a lot.