Had a tough day with schools of shad swimming through. Suggestions?

I took my nephew with me to Lake Anna on Tuesday to catch some crappie for an older family friend who doesn't have much longer to live. Weather was beautiful.

Got there and the water was a little murky, but we quickly found tons of bait and we could see the crappie swimming through them on the Livescope. That was really cool to watch!

But with jigs, it was very difficult fishing. We would drop it right on their heads, and they mostly ignored them or worse, scattered when the jig physically hit them on the head. If you caught one, it's belly was distended with baitfish.

We scraped out 8 fish in 5 hours, plus a few throwbacks. It was a tough day.

Toward the end of the day, a guy in a bass boat came up, and asked if this wasn't the best day ever? Huh?
He cast a small, bright orange lure and retrieved it WAY faster than we were, and BLAM, caught a fish. In 10 mins or so, he caught 3 fish, to our zero, then waved and took off.

We felt humbled. This guy knew what he was doing, and we didn't. Besides the bright colors, the faster retrieve seemed to have something to do with it. When I tried to mimic his method, I immediately caught one, but just that one.

Any tips for fishing when schools of shad are around?

The ones we kept weren't huge, but were decent...
Attachment 482670

look huge to me :ThumbsUp

Nice fish and a good trip anyway.

Fish on the outer edge away from the shad. I call it the fringe area. Works for me when spider rigging, the fish inside the shad are gorging themselves. Find the ones coming to feed on the frezny. You did good young man! Nice fish!

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Some days they just won’t hit unless it’s moving at a certain speed ( jigs ) . I guess they like the chase sometimes. I like catching them like this because they usually smash the jig.


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fish on bait are different , sometimes there is something they really like about a color or speed and or proximity , some folks will tell ya fish all over bait are the worst to target and sometimes when it comes to crappie this is fact ....
had some ruff times myself with schooled fish on open water baitfish myself .....it is what it is you know ...
might be one of them times trolling is effective ....not sure we never troll for crappie ....:dono

I would say those are very nice fish! Congratulations

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Originally Posted by thill

The ones we kept weren't huge, but were decent...
Attachment 482670

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look pretty darn nice to me , we are happy with 10 inch fish in these parts sometimes ....
them look better than a 10 incher to me .....

Nice catches