may I salt cure shad first, then cut when fishing? I read that the salted shad has red blood, seems fine to use as cut bait.

Quote Originally Posted by bearclaw View Post
Springtime is cut bait time in the river.last spring was a very good spring at wateree,lots of current means better fishing. Fresh cut shad is best at wateree by far..They will make be days at cedar creek where most bites will be cats and or perch but other days striper will be the main bite. Fresh cut shad and current is very important..I have not had any luck with frozen shad,to me when it thaws it's almost rotten and soft.I know there's different ways of preparing it for freezing ,,,brine and so forth but I haven't tried it....As for me personally,if all I have to fish with was frozen shad,,I wouldn't even go!! The Roanoke river was mentioned earlier,I have fished there a good bit,,,live bait there will out produce cut bait there by a wide margin. Another method that use to be popular was fishing with the gizzard from a big gizzard shad,,nasty fishing.. I haven't tried that in a while