I have fished with Minnows and shad. Then I was spider-rigging both baits. It seemed like that we would catch more on the minnows but we would always catch a monster on the shad. A few years ago my brother and I won one of the Crappie USA tournaments on Eufaula with Minnows and Shad. We were Kentucky rigging 18ft deep and he caught a 2.10lb on a thredfin shad. In fact he threw his shad net no more than 75 yards from were he caught that slab. It turned to be a $600 fish. I will also tell you that crappie hit those shad different than a minnow and you can only fish with them for about 5 min then they die. EB