Go Mad for Shad

It sounds like one of those bogus lures you see advertised in some tabloid, but there actually is a baitfish that’s so deadly for bass it probably ought to be outlawed. The critter is the threadfin shad, and it’s found throughout much of prime bassing country all over the southeastern U.S. and west throughout Texas and Oklahoma. When combined with live chumming tactics, it just about makes fishing too easy.

Saltwater anglers in Florida have long been aware of the amazing affect of live chum on coastal species, but where it’s been tried in fresh water, the results have been even more remarkable. When I joined TV angler Ray Van Horn on Lake Tarpon a few years back for a first look at the tactic, we caught and released over 80 bass in a half-day! And this was on a lake where a catch of four or five fish in a morning of tossing artificials was considered pretty good.

The threadfin shad looks like a cross between the saltwater threadfin herring and the scaled sardine. Threadfin shad are freshwater critters, but like their saltwater cousins, they’re very prolific, often gather in huge schools, and are an absolute favorite food of all predatory fish where ever they’re found.

The tactic that really turns them on, though, is to create an artificial feeding frenzy by tossing handfuls of groggy baits overboard near likely schooling habitat—offshore weeds, submerged timber, drop-offs or creek mouths. The baitfish flash, whirl, and sputter on top, and any fish that’s in the same zip code will come racing to the attack.

Once the mayhem starts, you simply hook up one of the baits on a light wire size #1 hook, and toss it to where the last piece of chum disappeared. It’s instant bass.

The only drawback in all this, of course, is that you can’t stop by the corner baitshop and pick up a couple hundred shad. They don’t survive well in bait tanks, so you pretty much have to catch them yourself. A large cast net is the tool of choice.

It sometimes takes longer to catch the bait than it does to catch the fish, and this is the one saving grace that prevents live shad fishing from cleaning out many popular bass lakes; most anglers don’t want to go to all the trouble of catching the bait and keeping it alive long enough to feed it to the bass.

Since you’re using it for chum as well as bait, several hundred are necessary for a morning on the water. The baitfish can often be found schooling on the surface, particularly on calm mornings when they make the characteristic “bait rain” pattern on the surface as they feed. More experienced cast netters also catch them sometimes by spotting the bait pod on their color depthsounder, then dropping a heavily weighted cast net down and “pursing” it over the minnows.

Shad fishing is good from late March through October in much of bassing country; during winter, the baits are too deep to catch, but as soon as they return to the shallower waters, you can bet the bass will be looking for them.