# big shad vs little shad



## Jackfish (Apr 15, 2004)

A buddy and me both caught alot of fish (15+) on baby shad while my brother's line went untouched (0); he was using large shad cut into chunks.

This same thing happend at Buckeye earlier in the year as well. (10 channels on little shad, 0 on big)

Has anyone else noticed a difference in baby shad vs large shad when targeting cats?


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## dinkbuster1 (Oct 28, 2005)

i always do better on sumo shad cut into chunks, think the bigger ones have more oils in them.


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## FINMAN (Apr 14, 2004)

Cut bigger shad. I will throw back a thousand little ones for a dozen 7-10 inchers.

They grow pretty quick though, so baby shad this time of year aint so baby.


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## catfish_hunter (May 31, 2005)

Baby shad in the early spring and later fall work great, In the past couple of years I have found that the channels will eat them 10:1 over larger cut chunks...Just my .02


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

I think more importantly is to follow the Well curve where you fish the most prevelant size of baitfish that is abundant in the river so that means in the spring, 2" shad are the ticket, but now you are dealing with 4-5" shad and 6-7" skippies so if possible try to fish that size and if not possible, then cut the sumo ones up.

Salmonid


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## Steelwolve (Apr 18, 2006)

I only have 1 year of using shad under my belt but so far this year Ive found using fresh dead or alive 5-6 inchers whole have produced much larger fish in Resivoirs like Hoover and Alum (both have large populations of 5-6 inch size shad) but when fishing River Resv. like oshay and griggs Large ones cut up work better for me than the small ones, like Fin said ive had nights where Ive thrown back a thousand 3 inchers to get a dozen 5-8 ers. Have yet to catch a fish over 5lbs on the little ones. But on the other hand I was at seneca last weekend and caught a 16 inch cat on a 9inch shad.


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## bassattacker (Mar 14, 2007)

bigger bait bigger fish, most of the time the bigger ones that hit little bait are very hungry and scavaging, but if a big bait is presented, normally when there hungry they will not pass up a for sure big meal. jmo


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## neocats1 (Oct 14, 2006)

The rule I generally follow is larger bait for larger fish. However, as the water temps start to drop, downsizing you baits and using the smaller ones often produce great results. I always keep a few baby shad just to try if I need to. I have also caught several fish when putting 2-3 baby shad on the same hook.


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