how to save shad?

[HEADSHAKER]

Does anybody have a good method for saving shad?I'd like to do some jugging but by the time i catch fresh shad i've wastsd a lot of time.

[jrw]

This may have no value at all but we all know to cool the water as much as possible .

Hydrogen Peroxide in a bottle is so cheap - at Walgreens and grocery stores. It is loaded with Oxygen . Pour a little in your bait bucket to
help the fish or shrimp.

You will have to try different amounts unless someone has the experience
and can recommend the exact amount.

Individuals carry Hydrogen Peroxide on their boats for cuts,etc.. It kills
germs, fungus, & whatever.

[HEADSHAKER]

Good answer, i meant for a couple weeks.

[TXPalerider]

No real good method. The best I've seen is to put a mixture of water, ice, and pickling salt in your bucket before you go cast netting. Toss them in it alive. It helps to get the salty water inside them. Then freeze in the salty water. This helps because saltwater will not freeze as hard. Thus, less damage to their fragile bodies.

http://2coolfishing.com/ttmbforum/showthread.php?t=59971

[HEADSHAKER]

I saw someone wrote about useing borax soap on them.Fish you lay 'em out on newspaper then cover the top with a few sheets to soak up the slime them you soap one side then flip'em and do the other side.I don't know fot sure it works but it sounds like it should because borax is used to flesh a deer cape.[anybody heard of this?]

[bueyescowboy]

yea I ve heard the borax soap too. Here's what I am wondering.....where are you fishing? By the time you flip dip snipe...i could have caught 50 fresh shad. Right now on livingston its no problem catching 20 or so a cast. My advice....take a few minute and throw that cast net and get you some good fresh shad.

[jackieblue]

Catching fresh bait is the #1 most important step to most fishing. Without it you don't catch fish. Fresh shad, dead bagged and on ice will outfish most baits day in and day out. Locating and catching bait, shad, is there really any other bait is just like fishing. You have to work and put time in learning how. Once you learn how, when, where, and why things come very easy. I catch shad fresh daily, allowing myself an hour to hour and half to do so before every trip. Most days it takes fifteen minutes and forty-five is a long time. There will be days its hard to find em but after a while it gets easier.
Keeping shad in the freezer or vaccum packed is better than no bait but very little better.
Keeping shad alive, no thank you, I had to when striper fishing and them suckers are looking for a reason to die and will find one.
Hint to keeping shad as fresh as possible. Get all the water off of them, bag them in a ziplock bag and keep them as cold and dry as possible. Sometimes a person can use shad for two days but not normally when it gets hot.
Thats about all I know about shad.

[TXPalerider]

Catching fresh bait is the #1 most important step to most fishing. Without it you don't catch fish. Fresh shad, dead bagged and on ice will outfish most baits day in and day out. Locating and catching bait, shad, is there really any other bait is just like fishing. You have to work and put time in learning how. Once you learn how, when, where, and why things come very easy. I catch shad fresh daily, allowing myself an hour to hour and half to do so before every trip. Most days it takes fifteen minutes and forty-five is a long time. There will be days its hard to find em but after a while it gets easier.
Keeping shad in the freezer or vaccum packed is better than no bait but very little better.
Keeping shad alive, no thank you, I had to when striper fishing and them suckers are looking for a reason to die and will find one.
Hint to keeping shad as fresh as possible. Get all the water off of them, bag them in a ziplock bag and keep them as cold and dry as possible. Sometimes a person can use shad for two days but not normally when it gets hot. Sage advice!
Thats about all I know about shad.:rotfl: Right!:D

[shadslinger]

I use a little variation on jackieblues good shad advice. #1 catch some shad that day. #2 lay a crawfish bag on the ice and the shad on top of it, use a small ice chest that you can lift and open the drain to let the water out over the side of the boat periodically thru the day. Keeping the shad from contacting the ice and especially the ice water will keep them as good as they will stay.
On days that I think I can catch shad all thru the day I put them ice as soon as I catch them, and I have enough ice to keep them up out of the water. If fishing for cats is good, and they seem to slow down. I take the time to go catch some more fresh ones and go back to where I was catching cats.
The routine on Livingston for me when shad can be caught all day is to start at the state park boat ramp before sunup. Two throws with the net will catch about 300 shad that I put right in the ice chest. Later if the cats seem to slow down but are still dragging baits around but not taking it enough to get hooked, or I keep catching only small ones where I was catching big ones I go to Pine Island and crank up the sensitivity on my sonar untill I find shad. Or just go to some places where I have always caught them and get fresh ones and go back to where I was catching good cats.
I have never found a way to keep them frozen and done any good with them as bait. I do keep buffalo, and carp that I catch in the cast net, scale them, and cut them into thumbnail size pieces. I freeze them and they will do well as bait the day that you thaw them, after that they are no good.

[HEADSHAKER]

NEXT question ?where and how do you catch shad at conroe.