All right men i live in skip-jack country / I use skips in the fall // heavy in the winter / some in the spring / I dont waste them in the heat Big blues are hard to find in warm water /// Caught & used skips for years // / Won several tourneys with skips in Texas Lakes where there are none naturally / / Be carefull buying skips some folks dont package them right & they will be freezer burnt... I gave Little D some to try this winter On Tawakoni / / / I have had 2 freight - trains kick my [censored] on Tawakoni with skips i will be back this winter Cathog!!!! We will fish hard!!LOL

Big Sam, do this mean you're taking orders for skipjacks for the winter run to Tawak? We're making a shad run this evening, gonna see if we can stock up.

They just came in!!! I had em shipped to a family members house so they would go straight to a freezer. They came frozen wrapped in newspaper in a styrofoam box. Gonna hit Waco on Sat. evening!!

anyone ever used them at Lewisville or Ray Bob????

There's no miracle bait (except the helicopter lure), however there are plenty of really good catfish baits out there. One of the best is skipjack herring, but then mackeral is a good catfish bait as is just about any fish that has an oily texture and emits oil into the water. Shad is about as good as any bait you can get. Catalpa worms are great as well, but unless you have a tree, you probably won't get any. Basically, if you aren't catching fish where you are fishing, you are probably fishing where the fish aren't eating, or you are doing something wrong that doesn't include your choice of bait.

glad to hear you got yours...I never did but may give them a second chance, depending on your review of how well they work...

Sam I never said they dont work, I just said that I wasn't going to drive 6 or more hours each way to get some when I can get gizzard shad (which most of the time work as well or better for me IMO) here without driving LOL. Now I will grant that if we could get them fresh here, there might not be a better big blue bait. If you and Johnny want to bring me some I will make sure to soak them good to catch a big blue on. When yall come down I will make sure to block out some time to fish with yall instead of just chunking nets for bait LOL(my dang shoulder hurt for a week). Hopefully I will be back from my tuna trip in time to come see yall at lake Fork next weekend.

I just love how this is put. I can tell you like those skip j's

You've got a seat on my boat if you bring me some of those skippies!

Well dad and I hit the lake about 7:00 pm last night. Caught us some gizzard shad and did a drift pass with no takers. Right at dusk we anchored out on a point with shallow to deep water all around had marked some big fish right off the drop off. Fished 1/2 the rods gizzard and the other 1/2 skipjack. Not much action till about 10:30 we had one big hit on skipjack but no taker then right when dad was about to reel it in to check the bait the rod (med-heavy) doubles over to the water and the drag (set pretty tight) started spitting out line. Dads biggest blue was 7# till this point. He grabs the rod and tried to just hold on because this fish was BIG. The fight was short lived my 65# power pro snapped like a twig!! I use palomar knots and have NEVER had a fish break off. I felt so bad for dad this very much looked like the fish of a lifetime but at least he's still out there.

That's to bad for your Dad Curtis, that's a sick feeling when you lose a big fish. I got a feeling you will pull a monster out of there soon.

I would urge you to throw a castnet for shad. There is no substitute for fresh live bait or even fresh dead.

I did use the cast net and used 1/2 and 1/2 to see what would get the better bite. That fish took the skipjack. Sometimes I gotta push the envelope and see whats new or try what hasen't been tried.

Were the skips still nice and frozen when you got them? Where they vacumed sealed? How big were they? Thanks

Still frozen, wrapped in butcher paper, all about 1-1.5# @ 14". I got some 2 gallon ziplocks and put one wrapped fish in each bag, rolled out the air closed and froze them.