ive heard people say that they maybe do it to clean out there gills or something like that

Must have been females shad...

I believe that at times shad kinda flicker'in the top of the water maybe feeding and not running from bigger fish.Now when they are jumping for thier lives,and you see fish blowing up on them "It's ON!!"

Also, shad can scare themselves. If they are balled up or moving in a big school all it takes is for one to react to anything and the whole school can go nuts for a second.

At night on belton. Any time you would here a BOOM from the base, we would have so many jumping they would land in the boat.

You must've turned on your Hydrowave and not known it!

I was about to say the same thing.

I agree, if they are leaping out of the water something is after them. I've seen it happen as they travel over a hump. they seemed to get to a certain spot and something would explode on them and a couple would fly over a yard out of the water. every once in a while we would see a bass behind them. I wasn't too successful at getting the bass. I've been wanting to try an Alabama rig in that spot but those things seems like they are more of a hassle then what they are worth.

If they are just flopping around, chances are there's nothing causing it, why bring unecassary attention if your a defenseless little shad...now if they are skittering across the top in short bursts..they are running from something

Not sure if serious......

Predator chasing them is most likely.

Too much hype about shad jumping out h2o , now if the water is boiling with what appears to be a feeding frenzy that's different.

Yea I don't really care if I see shad busting unless there is obviously something larger trying to eat them. Sometimes running a white spinner bait below them will pick a few fish off.

Shad are at the bottom of the food chain and are eaten by pretty much anything that swims, jumps or flys. It is for this reason that they are by nature skittish as he77. As stated before they will freak out themselves while schooling weather they are being targeted or not. You would be jumpy too if everybody was after your azz.

If you spend enough time on the water, sooner or later you'll see a school of shad running the bank trying to escape from preditor fish and depending on the size of the school it can be quite the site to see.

Every member of the sunfish family has figured out how to do this and that the pickins are pretty easy if you can herd them into the bank and choke them off from escape. Things sure do start getting interesting when the water starts to boil.