Are There Shad In Northern Lakes?

[tcbass]

I've read so many articles where people say, "Find the shad" and use shad-like baits.

 

 

 

Well, I fish the Twin Cities of Minnesota and I'm not sure our lakes up here have shad.

 

 

 

Do Minnesota lakes have shad?

[slonezp]

We have them in IL

[Kevin22]

No, not all of them. Actually very few with the exception of lakes connected to rivers. 

 

Your forage species are a bit different. Perch, tulibee, whitefish, and various minnows/shiners are the forage base. In central and southern MN Its primarily perch and panfish as forage.  

[Catch and Grease]

The lake I fish doesn't have them I don't think, its main bait fish are blue gill, perch, war mouth, wild shiners, and minnows

But I'm in south Georiga.

[MarkH024]

All I know is shad looking baits still work great in waters where they dont exist.

Pretty certain there are a few bodies of water that have shad of some sort. Check the MN dnr site.

[Jar11591]

A few lake around here have gizzard shad.

[Snakehead Whisperer]

No, not all of them. Actually very few with the exception of lakes connected to rivers. 

 

Your forage species are a bit different. Perch, tulibee, whitefish, and various minnows/shiners are the forage base. In central and southern MN Its primarily perch and panfish as forage.  

Tulibee and whitefish do look similar to shad. Enough that a shad bait would look close enough, at least.

[hoosierbass07]

I think one if the lakes I fish at has shad because the state puts in those hybrid striped bass to control the shad. But when it comes to shad - I have no idea what a shad looks like.

[tholmes]

I think one if the lakes I fish at has shad because the state puts in those hybrid striped bass to control the shad. But when it comes to shad - I have no idea what a shad looks like.

 

 

Tom

[ww2farmer]

A couple lakes around here have Alewife.....close enough.

[FrogFreak]

I have no idea if there are Shad in the lakes I fish. I find that if you focus on Bluegill and Perch patterns in Northern MN lakes, you'll get bit.

[senile1]

Once the water temperature drops below approximately 45 degrees, threadfin shad start to die off.  If your lakes get much colder than that and stay at those temperatures for a while in the winter, you will have a large threadfin fish kill.  I have read that threadfin cannot survive water temperatures below 35 degrees, but generally when the water is frozen on top, the temperature at the bottom of a deeper lake is approximately 39 degrees so it is possible that some could survive.  (Funny thing about water - in the summer it gets colder as you go deeper because cooler water is more dense, but in the winter after the water reaches 39.4 degrees and below, the cooler water becomes less dense and stays on top.  If it didn't do this water would freeze from the bottom up.)

 

On the other hand, gizzard shad can survive in colder temperatures.  Here as far north as Kansas City, we have gizzard shad but we don't see threadfins.  Our biggest lake, Smithville, gets down to 35 degrees or cooler on the main lake and the coves freeze up and it remains at these temperatures for quite a few weeks.  On the south side of the state of Missouri, however, threadfin do survive in Table Rock Lake, Bull Shoals, etc as their water temperatures may only hit the low 40s on rare occasions.

[boostr]

A couple lakes around here have Alewife.....close enough.

I think I've seen some here in Jersey also, I think I've seen them chase my crank bait at one of the resis I was at, but the majority of the forage are pan fish.

[Raul]

If I were to follows such advice

 

I've read so many articles where people say, "Find the shad" and use shad-like baits.

 

 

 

Well, I fish the Twin Cities of Minnesota and I'm not sure our lakes up here have shad.

 

 

 

Do Minnesota lakes have shad?

 

I would be screwed if I followed that kind of advice, there´s no friggin´ shad nor something similar to that in my neck of the woods. Bass here, and specially at my everyday lake feed on baby carp ( the most common forage ), bluegills ( not available in all lakes or ponds ), tilapia ( much more common than bluegill but still not available everywhere ), minnows ( not quite common ) and of course, baby bass !

 

I do not believe nor practice the "match the hatch" theory, to me lacks of foundation I´ve caught and catch bass consistently with baits that imitate or look like something bass have never seen nor will ever see in their menu like trout, crappie, white bass, shad, shiners, perch n´such.

[jhoffman]

Gizzard shad in southern central pa, lake raystown and alewife

[WRB]

Most lakes that freeze over do not support a "shad" population unless there is water warmer than 44 degrees ( springs or power generation plant) they may have herring and other silver colored baitfish.

Tom