Hi! Newbie here in the Temple area, and when I say blues I mean both meanings of the word. I was out on Belton today running my trotline close to the 36 bridge and pulling up hook after hook with bait still on it (pre packaged frozen shad) when another boat pulls up to check juglines not 20 feet from where my trotline was, 2 of the jugs had what looked like 4 foot blues on them, I couldn't believe it! So I asked what he was using for bait and he said shad caught from the boat ramp, so my question is: does using baitfsh from the body of water truly make that much difference? Its driving me crazy I havent caught a single cat in 15 trips to the lake this year, I'm almost to the point of hanging my rods up in frustration. Thanks for any replies/advice, sorry for the long post

I'd say so

It's not that the shad was from the same body of water, it's that the shad was fresh, not frozen. Frozen shad loses a lot of its effectiveness. I do not under any circumstances fish with frozen shad anymore. I'd rather spend two hours catching bait and one hour fishing than fish for three hours with frozen shad.

Definately need to catch fresh bait, the pre-packaged shad is terrible.

When we were there 2 weeks ago we tore the blues up use fresh shad from the lake. The shad we used we about 2 1/2 to 3 inches long. Try catching you some fresh shad 10 cast and you can have 100 shad to use all day. I usually just catch enough for the morning and then catch some later in the day to keep them fresh and not dead.