I work on a catfish farm in arkansas and i love trot lining for flatheads on a small river near my house. it gets kind of hard catching bait after a while but i have acess to all the shad i want. i just cant keep them alive! do you have any tips on keeping them alive long enough to get them on a hook??? .. Josh Adams
Josh,
Keeping shad alive is a bit of an art form and requires some trial and error in learning how to effectively keep them alive. Even the most experienced striper fishermen that fish with live shad day in and day out will tell you that shad are interesting creatures and they can be in your bait tank and be fine and then die ten minutes later.
The first suggestion I would offer is that if you are fishing for flathead catfish, shad is probably not going to be your best choice, because even if you do keep theme alive in your bait tank, they are not very hearty. By this I mean they do not stay alive (or very active) for extended periods of time once you put them on the hook. You can certainly use them for fishing for flatheads but of all the experienced and successful flathead anglers that I know, none of them (myself included) use shad for bait on trotlines for flathead catfish. The reason they don’t use them on their trotlines is because they are difficult to keep alive, are not very lively, and they don’t stay alive on the trotline hooks for long.
To be successful at fishing for flathead catfish with trotlines you need to be able to bait your lines and leave them for extended periods of time (overnight or half the night at least) and have your bait still be lively and active on the hooks during this time. I am going to post some videos and information in the coming weeks that will give you some real insight into their feeding behaviors and why they feed like they do and why many anglers are not successful at catching them on trotlines or on rod and reel.
Make sure you subscribe to our feed and email updates so you get this information when it is posted. The videos should be posted in the next couple of weeks, I just need to get them edited.
I would suggest using perch, blue gill, mudcats or some other bait fish on your trotlines. Even goldfish purchased at bait shops will workon your trotlines. Perch, blue gill and mudcats are probably the most common bait for trotlines because:
- Easy to keep alive
- Easy to transport
- Stay alive on the hook for long periods of time
- Readily available
- Can often times be purchased at bait shops
- Can be caught with traps like perch traps
- Can be caught with cast nets
- Can be caught with rod and reel
I am going to post this answer in two parts. Go to the tips on keeping shad alive post here for the second part of my answer. It is sort of a keeping shad alive 101 post.
Cast nets for catching shad:
Betts No Spook? Camo Cast Nets
