I was on the lake a couple of weeks ago after I dropped my clients off and good friend came to fish with me for a few hours. As I left the boat ramp I noticed a young man throwing a cast net off in the distance. He was in a rather odd location to catch shad and he was throwing a TINY cast net.
I pulled up to the area where I was going to fish and anchored my boat. I watched him in the distance for the better part of 45 minutes throwing again and again. At one point he idled past me and I noticed he had a small child in the boat with him.
He pulls up to another location and starts throwing again and again. I couldn’t stand to watch him any more. I pulled about 100 yards off from where we’d been fishing, spotting a large ball of shad on my sonar, threw the cast net and filled up a three gallon bucket with large threadfin shad with two throws.
I then idled over to this young mans boat and gave him a big ziplock bag full of shad.
About ten days later as I was headed in at the end of my trip I spotted him again, in the same area, throwing over and over again. I dropped my clients off and went back out to catch bait for my trip the next morning.
I threw a couple of extra times, got plenty of extra threadfin shad and gizzard shad and idled back over to him again and passed him a big gallon bag of shad.
This time, I started questioning him on what he was doing and why, and offered some advice on locating and catching shad.
I received an email from him a week later thanking me, along with a picture of a big bucket full of shad. All it took to get this young man on the right track was the right tools, and a little education.
I looked at his cast net and explained to him why it wasn’t working for him, and showed him the screen of my Humminbird sonar unit.
I showed him some screenshots of shad and what they looked like on sonar and tweaked the settings on his fish finder for him so he’d be able to better tell what was below his boat.
Winter Time Shad Woes
This time of year shad becomes a “hot topic” and everyone’s talking about how hard it is and complaining about how they can’t catch bait.
The truth is, you can catch winter shad, but “blind luck” is not going to take you far in the winter. During much of the year you can get out on the water and throw your cast net a few times and catch some bait. The shad is usually scattered enough that you’ll catch a few here and there (with enough work) that you’ll at least catch enough fresh bait to fish with.
Winter Time Shad: All Or None
During the winter catching shad is more of an “all or none” deal.
If you throw in the right location you’ll have more bait than you need, but you have to be precise.
If you’re randomly throwing your cast net to try and catch bait you’re not going to be successful.
Three Reasons You Can’t Catch Winter Shad
Here’s the three reasons I see people having way more difficulty than they should catching winter shad. I can’t begin to stress how important it to not only make sure you have fresh bait but that you put the time and effort into to learning how to locate and pattern shad.
There’s no argument that fresh caught shad is one of the top baits for catching blue catfish.
1. Using The Wrong Cast Net
This is the number one reason people go wrong catching shad...