Last 2 trips I have just found some small stripers and couple under hybirds. Marking tons of fish and baitfish, but just don't seem interested in my slab. Any suggestions? I have even been in couple good schooling areas and seen very little top water activity. Are they still lingering around in shallow water??

My experience is that it's tought in the summer when you are not using live shad. I have a hard time keeping shad alive because I don't have one of those $$$ bait tanks. I will probably start trying to use shad from here on out until fall. I will try to put them in an igloo cooler with an aireator or in my livewell. I am going to try to add salt and some of that store bought bait saver to the water.
I struggled fishing with artificials on Sunday, with the exception of trolling hell-pets. Hell-pets seem to always work but you have to be careful not to disturb other boats nearby and its not as fun as catching them on the cast.

I have three quesitons:

1) Can you catch shad in pretty much any shallow cove or near any of the boat ramps?

2) Does anybody try fishing shad using a slab as the weight like a drop shot rig?

3) Do "fresh dead" shad work drifting? Or maybe fresh dead rigged above a slab like a dropshot rig?

Thanks!

Thanks for the info. I have actually never used live bait to fish for Hybrids with. I have always thrown slabs and had good success, I have seen the lake off like this before. I think its still settling down from filling up. Once it levels off and quits dropping, I think we will see better bite. I have been with a friend of mine years ago, that would tip his trolling bait with a Shad, he would use the shad dead or alive and done very well that away.

Good deal, well once you start having some success with slabs and such, let me know! I have never had any luck fishing with slabs and I need some help. I've done okay with sassy shad, rattle traps, and big road runners, but not slabs. I also need to get better at reading my basic model fish finder. Maybe I need to upgrade....

Trust me, I upgraded my finder this year. It is a challenge, I can def give you some pointers on the slab presentation when they aren't so finicky That is all I fish, all I change is the size and color.

Me and my buddy used fresh dead shad on 6/5 and caught several while drifting. I even cut a few big ones into large chunks and they about pulled the rod out our hands.

I'll take all the pointers I can get on fish finder usage and slab presentations!

Interesting on the fresh dead shad! I may try that if the live ones I'm using start to die. I think driftin them or slowly jigging them above a slab would be productive.

Live bait,good electronics, and a I-pilot are key to success right now.That does not mean you will not be able to do well without all these.First you have to be on a good school of fish (It's a numbers game....)Second for now the water is stained. In the best looking water of the lake (yesterday) I dropped a slab into the water at the most, you could see it about three foot under the surface.So my thoughts are the fish cannot see the bait/Lures as well so frisky live bait in there face is the what is working right now.A good trolling motor (with good batteries helps)Being able to spot lock is priceless .Currently on my own boat I do not have a I-pilot after using the I pilot on My guide boat at Texoma I am really spoiled. Being able to watch the graph drive with the remote, and spotlock on the fish to pluck a few fishes from the schoolis awesome. That being said Yesterday we had one out of the three items a Good Graph.When I finally found a good school, myself and BenP got some really good fish on slabs. Our live bait was dead ,and gone by then.Live bait was not hard to get.However I was using my live well with no livewell plug,or live well pump...Sassy shad in a nitrel glove kinda works for a plug....Had no fix for the puump beside dumping fresh water in from the lake in a five gallon bucket.Having a Ipiolt when we had live bait would have help our numbers.My batteries are shot so my trolling moter was no match for the wind yesterday.If I did not have a good graph yesterday we would have done OK we came across spot yesterday where the graph loaded up with good fish.We caught some good fish on lures...on a ledge in about 15 - 20 foot of water.I enjoy the lure fishing to live bait fishing by far . Beside making a list on how bad my boat is neglected I hope this helps. I have a I-pilot, new batteries,,new live wellplug& pump.all in the works if I don't forget my wallet (inside joke)

Glad you found some Mike, we will be there later today PM trip.

I helped Jimmy Smith this morning and we had way over 100 fish each boat all on Coca Moes and sassy shad from www.moestacklehop.com . If you pull up on a boat show off live baiters, chances are you won't catch too many fish. Even if the bait guys are slamming them. Those fish are pretty keyed in on shad. There are lots of fish off the humps and in open water right now. You really have to search for them with the electronics and maybe get a tip from a few birds or an old heron.

Same as Matt's post above, I did a PM trip today, all slabs and sassy shads fish caught on structure, not 1 sand bass, very good stripers and hybrids to over 12lbs. A great evening on the water. All fish released healthy.

All good tips, thanks guys! I just don't yet have enough confidence in my electronics and ability to catch em' with slabs. I need to start practicing finding em' on the graph, dropping down to them and then trying to stay on em' with the trolling motor. I don't have an ipilot and that makes it hard. So if birds are absent, just patrol the humps, points and ledges with the graph until you spot a decent school and then drop down to just above thier depth? I have some of those orange buoy markers but I don't know if that is worthless since the fish are always moving.

Going in the morning. I have dumb question what would you consider structure.

Points, ledges, humps.

I finally was able to find some good biting fish on structure. The seemed to be concentrating on the edges, instead of the flats. I tend to shy away from the boat shows. I know that's not the only biting fish out there, you just gotta search, kind of a trial and error. Its getting better for sure for artificial. I just hope this weather system coming in doesn't turn thins upside down again.