C-land shad or shiners??

Spent Sunday AM on C-land pulling live bait from 6am -11am. I think I was at the totally wrong location, but sure had a beautiful sunrise!! I have heard lots about shiners, shad, gizzards, alewives....and sometimes bluegill. I know there is the "match the hatch"....but if your not experienced at throwing the cast nets or can get to the dock lights at the wee hours.... is shiners a decent choice...or even look into pulling u-rigs if you can't get shad?

Your thoughts are very welcome. Thanks for all your advice.

I was down at Cumberland on Saturday night/Sunday morning as well. Sadly was the first I've been down to that lake this year. Hate being too busy! I can't speak for the shiners as I've never tried them before... usually will toss out the net to get some shad and alewives and let them free-line over marked schools of fish if I am able to and if I can't seem to net any or if the live bait doesn't seem to be doing the trick my next best method that I've had luck with is trolling with Flitterbaits or deep-diving shad lures. Caught two that morning like this. Hope that helps!

[SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=Times New Roman]My two cents, shad will produce better than shiners. I used shiners for many years and did catch fish. From my experience, the bigger fish will come off gizzards or alewives. I prefer gizzards. And yes, you will need a good cast net and a good shad tank. Not cheap, but a good shad tank is a MUST if you’re going to keep shad, and keep them lively, for any length of time. With that said, I believe the area you fish is more important than the bait you’re using. Lively 7” gizzards will not produce fish if the fish aren’t there! I search for an area that is marking nice size schools of baitfish before I ever put my lines out. You find the bait fish, stripers are usually close by. ;) [/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE]

The number of fish are in the area and if they are feeding are huge factors. If you are sitting over a large school, you could probably drop a boot tongue down there and get hit. So in that case shiners would work just fine. So would a spoon. For smaller packs or onesy twosies Shad or Alewives will get bit many times when shiners won't.

Couple of years ago at about this same time of year the fish were moving in on the north shore for less than an hour first thing. We pulled up and there were boats all through the area. They were as tight as I've seen to a point where you could hear people talking in the boats next to you. We set out eight down lines and had four keepers, all over 16 pounds, in less than 15 minutes. The boats on either side of us weren't getting bit at all. We could hear them say, "They got another one!". There wasn't a school to speak of as the fish were moving in and out in very small packs. The difference between getting bit and not, I am sure, was the fact that I had a tank full of very lively Gizzards and I would venture to say the other boats didn't. It was one of those times where it mattered.

I've had shiners out over large schools and had them hit them like candy. Never had much luck with them when they weren't schooled up but have caught fish. A trick with shiners on down lines is to keep them moving. If you go over a school, jig a rod some. Shiners just mozzy through the water and don't draw a lot of attention on their own.