Dale Hollow live bait question

[creekrock]

How much better is the shad caught from the lake compared to the shiners from the baitshop?For catching smallmouth that is.

[Fishin is life]

Both work very well....I've caught bigger fish on creek minnows and I believe it's because my creek minnows are quite a bit larger....You really can't go wrong either way

[fishalltime]

I've seen the time when you could'nt get bit on shiners but you put the alwief's(not sure on spelling) in front of them an it's game on!It's what they eat everyday an they cant resist.There are times when you can do good on shiners also but the lake minnows will outdo them everytime from my experiance.

[Longdrive]

I have fished there once with a guide and he called shiners "tourist minners", he wouldn't fish anything but shad, thought it was a waste of time. I did land a 5lber that day, so I couldn't complain.
We spoke a lot about shad and shad rigging that day, an interesting side note was fishing shad in the CR, shad have no equal there either. Even when we are flyfishing the river we go heavy on shad patterns, and quickly pick up any that came through the turbines and just put them on the fly hook, the big browns can't seem to stay off of them