Shad in January

[Seanstone]

The ohio river is looking pretty fishable now, another day or two and i'll be ready to give it a shot. Last time we were down there we had fresh skipjack for bait, but id like to get my hands on some fresh shad between now and Tuesday. Any one have suggestions on areas to throw net some shad from lakes this time of year? I usually just get them from a local warm water discharge, but since the rivers up its almost impossible. Do I target shallow creek arms? Rip rap? Or are they deep this time of year?

[bassmassey]

if the waters in the 40's the shad will be balled up and deep.....sometimes 20'-30 deep.......i don't have much experience fishing lakes up here yet.......but that's what the bait does in ga and sc lakes once the water was in the 40's.......

the only problem is you can't throw a net bigger then 5' in ohio..? I don't beleive it would be very effective getting balled up shad out of deep water with a 5' net......

[Seanstone]

That's what I thought. I'll just have to catch skippies from the warm water discharge, or catch a few gills from the lake and take out. Thanks for the info.

[bassmassey]

don't under-estimate the fresh cut bream.......

[skinfish]

Hope ya get some bait. Good luck

[Seanstone]

Thanks guys. Honestly i've never used cut gills on the ohio river. Always favored more oily cut bait such as shad and skippies. I plan on using gill heads on 6/0 and 8/0 circle hooks, and am debating whether or not to use em whole and run a second trailer hook. But we'll see what I get into.

[Skyline1506]

sean these are the rigs we have been running in the big rivers for bigger cuts of bait.

10/0 bottom dwellers circle
4/0 kahle trailer

[Skyline1506]

we interchange the 10/0 when necessary and downsize the main hook but leave the trailer at 4/0

[Seanstone]

Thanks Jordan. Don't have any 10/0 circles yet, but there oon the way. 8/0 is as big as I have. What do you think about an 8/0 circle trailed with a 6/0 octopus j-hook? I'm heading to the lake tomorrow and then to the river Wednesday through Saturday, if there bitting. Lol. If not i'll go back to fishing the lakes.

[Skyline1506]

sean i dont see any major problems with that rig. the 6/0 should eliminate short biting blues and still nab the smaller channels that latch on. sounds like a good rig to me. good luck.

sorry about your car brother hopefully your luck is better on the river

[Skyline1506]

oh p.s. we usually run the kahle trailers because they load up similar to a circle, but you should be fine with a j as well

[Seanstone]

Jan 3, 2012 19:12:22 GMT -5 Skyline1506 said:

oh p.s. we usually run the kahle trailers because they load up similar to a circle, but you should be fine with a j as well

Might try running a smaller circle hook as a trailer then. I was thinking of setting the hook on the fish that are too hesitant to load the rods and thus the reason for the j hook. I probably just need to get a few kahles too. Never tried one but it seems that quite a few people use them. What style kahle do you typically use? Have you tried trokar brand hooks? I'm always tempted to grab some at bass pro but I never do.

[Skyline1506]

the trouble with setting a hook when you are running 2 is if it is a good fish on the circle you might pull the whole bait out of its mouthh after the circle misses. i see what you are saying though basically if the circle misses the j should set, but think of how the hookset on a circle is as compared to a clicker style set for a j. the second is much heavier. basically you lean into the hook set on a circle hook as opposed to the aggresive hookset of a j. so i would worry about the j hook setting properly since you will be fishing circle hook style. if that makes sense.

we run similar set-ups j hooks with kahle trailers when using clickers. with a heavier hookset it makes no difference which hook they are on

we typically run eagle claw kahles
4/0 for trailers
4/0 and 7/0 for channels
7/0-10/0 for flatheads

i tend to run kahles in lakes and j style in rivers. not always but i drift that way. for me it seems that when using kahles in the river, i assume it is due to current rolling and twisting baits, that the kahles will turn back into my baits. whereas in lakes i dont seem to run into the issue.

[Seanstone]

I see what you mean with the j hooks as trailers and setting the hook with circles. Sounds like you really got it figured out. I appreciate the info. Now I just have to get amanda to drive me to the river until I get my car fixed. Lol

[Skyline1506]

no problem man thats what the site is all about.
Lol, i wish i had it figured out man, but catfishing is a continous learning curve, you never know when something will pop up that changes and simplifies how you do everything.