Shad Kill?

[willyfish]

Refresh my memory on the shad kill. What does it do to the fishing and how do you use it to your advantage? Do you like to fish in these "kill" places or do you avoid them?

[Fish24/7]

My best day of winter bass fishing was during a shad kill. We fished the edges of a large piece of ice floating out in the lake. Just hammered 'em with a tube all afternoon. It was a warm day and the ice on the lake was melting. We'd cast our tubes up onto the ice then drag it over the edge into open water. The tube would sink maybe a foot and a bass would grab it. There were hundreds of shad frozen in the ice. As the ice melted the bass fed.

if you choose the right lures and presentations to match the current conditions you can catch fish just about any time

[Sprint21fter]

I haven't really done very good when there is a big population of dead shad. However, if I see a few dead shad here and there I tend to do better not so easy for the bass to sit underneath and open there mouth they still have to move a little get fed. I have heard of people killing them when they are around a bunch of dead shad though. I want to run away from the buffet.

[Bill Babler]

I have fished this lake since the early 70's and have never ever done well around a bunch of dying shad. If I can see one here or one there I have caught them and caught them good.

If they are dead floating or I can see gulls diving and see them dying all around me, I pretty much get out of Dodge and move to a area with less natural forage.

[Jerry Rapp]

My best day of winter bass fishing was during a shad kill. We fished the edges of a large piece of ice floating out in the lake. Just hammered 'em with a tube all afternoon. It was a warm day and the ice on the lake was melting. We'd cast our tubes up onto the ice then drag it over the edge into open water. The tube would sink maybe a foot and a bass would grab it. There were hundreds of shad frozen in the ice. As the ice melted the bass fed.

if you choose the right lures and presentations to match the current conditions you can catch fish just about any time

so they were feeding on frozen shad?

[Pepe]

Last year in March, we found a few dying Gizzard Shad on a very windy day. We went to the back of a cove the wind was blowing into and caught a half dozen very nice LM on spinnerbaits.

[Moswimb8slinger]

I went to the state park marina on monday afternoon to try out a new bait and saw about a dozen 1.5" shad on the surface dying/stunned being blown out of the marina and some gulls were there filling their bellies. I touched one with the tip of my rod and it would swim down about 6" and suspend stunned again or float back to the top.

I tied on a BBZ1 4"shad floater that i modified with a weighted hook so that it can suspend about 6inches under the surface. I super slow rolled it with a couple of twitches, but didn't get bit. Didn't see any topwater action.

It was nice to observe the stunned/dying shad in how they acted and reacted when coming in contact with rocks and sticks.

[bobby b.]

One of my favorite things to do is to chase the diving gulls and throw any shad type bait catching whites and LM. Sometimes it last a long time and other times just a few fish are caught.