What are your opinions as far as using them for Bluecat ? Live or cutbait ? I'm not the best at catching Shad, but I have a pond where I can get all of the hand sized redbreasted bream that I could ever want.

I dont personally ever have much luck on them for some reason, the fish i manage to catch almost always come on shad. I know there are several guys here who do really well with them when they cant find shad. I just cant seem to. I did hear somebody recently say to beat them up a little bit before you cut them, that will get their blood flowing a bit, and i plan on trying that next time i decided to use them.

hmmmm....really??? you share and i'll share

I have caught alot of nice blues on cut perch, works better than shad sometimes. The bigger the better for me. Scale it,take fillets off sides and use those and also the head.

yup sunfish fillets and heads........even previously frozen good too....don't mush up like shad......I'll take 5 gallons please...

I have some buffalo marinaeding in Dead Red Blood Spray, in the for Weds evening.
Will that work as well?

Yup....sometimes they will only hit shad- other times only hit Buffalo or cut Sunfish - sometimes either........why I like to have both if possible

Yes Sir--
I got my biggest fish the last two trips on exactly that,
also do OK on chicken breast w/dead red.
I had shad also but they didn't want my shad.

Next time I see you at Tawakoni we are going to catch some shad.

Thanks for the replys, I'm thinking about setting up a tank here at the house and keeping a couple hundred here all of the time, just for times like these. They are tuff little critters and easy to keep alive in this cooler weather.

and remember, you never sell, but donations are always welcome

Sounds like youre going to have a bunch of new friends real soon!!!

I wasn't even thinking about selling them, but Tom and I fished together on 12-7-11 and we struggled for bait and when I get a PRO to fish with me, I want to have a good back-up !!

Experiment, experiment, experiment, until you find what they like on a every day basis. Try descaling or cutting off the head, or strips, cubes, and fillets. Try different sizes, sometimes they wont touch a palm sized perch but will tear up a 1" perch. When you have luck with one type of bait, don't just assume that's what they like. Take into consideration the air temp, water temp, wind, barometric pressure, cloud cover as well as your bait and ways the bait was preped.

This is the time of year big blues go nuts over cut perch! I cut mine in a number of ways. Heads, chunks, fillets, carcusses all get blues in a frenzy... Perch fillets are my favorite because they are a durable cut of meat that I can air mail 120 yards in the right wind conditions. They hold their scent a very long time in cold water. Ive also caught several 40 - 50 lb fish on perch heads and chunks. If you have an unlimited supply of large fresh gills....you cant go wrong