I think they were the Shiners which are usually about 2" to maybe 3". These were not gizzard shad or herrings or even thread fin shad. Those shad are very hard to keep alive for long. They tend to die fast.

The place I was talking about gets most of their minnows from Arkansas via big water trucks. I have been there when the truck was unloading minnows. This bait shop has 4,000 gallon tanks and they have about 8 of these in one room of the poll barn. There are several other tanks like these in the next room. This is a Wholesale shop that sells minnows to bait shops within 50 miles of Evansville, IN. They use to sell to the bait shops up around Patoka Lake even.

If you want live shad for bait you may want to get a cast net and try to catch your own bait on the lake you are fishing. It takes a lot to keep these shad alive for very long. Larger water tanks with rounded corners are used by some and they treat the water to keep the shad alive longer. Chilling the water down to around 55 deg F help keep Chubs and Shiners alive but I don't know if that will work with Shad. Shad don't tolerate cold water as well. At least I have heard and read that very cold winters and shallow lakes can creates big shad kills. Gizzard shad survive cold water much better than thread fin shad. Here in IN the only lakes that I know of that have thread fin shad in them are the Power Plant cooling lakes that are kept warm in the winter months by the hot water being discharged into the lake from the boilers. The water is discharged into these large lakes and then once it's cooled down it's discharged out of the lake into the nearby rivers. This is done to prevent thermal pollution of the rivers.


Regards,

Moose1am