Shad following spinnerbait

[jbp84]

This morning went outside my comfort zone and fished spinner bait most of the morning on wind blown banks and around rip rap and slow rolling some points that have produced in the past. One thing I found Weird on a few occasions bait fish would be following the spinner bait to the boat. Is that normal or was there a fish pushing the shad with spinnerbait. I was just curious, spinnerbait has been my nemesis and has produced on lakes I fish for others.......now I think it's time for me to learn it

[plastics man]

That's pretty normal here in Pa in the spring. Always have gizzard shad run a spinnerbait back to the boat.

[Transom]

Yep. Happens all the time.

[WVBullet]

Normal here too. I've had shad and minnows do that several times. If you could get a minnow to grow up to 5 pounds he'd be a vicious catch. They're actually an aggressive little fish.

[chevypro1]

When that happens here, the shad are usually getting ready to spawn.

[jbp84]

If it is that's crazy water Temps still being mid 50's here in ga

[JINXBASS]

Yes happens quite often. I have even caught a few on a jerkbait.

[BigBass94]

chevypro1 is right, that usually means they're ready to do their thing. Haha.

[chevypro1]

If it is that's crazy water Temps still being mid 50's here in ga

The temps are up and down. Two weeks ago on Clark Hill water was 62-63. Today the warmest I found was 57 and the fish did not bite!

[jbp84]

I managed one on a crankbait. I've struggled with lip less cranks and spinnerbaits. I went and only fished those two kind off swapping back and forth

[DrewFlu33]

Another thing that I've found when I've had this happen is that the fish that are keyed on these following baitfish will often also follow a spinnerbait (or crankbait, or chatterbait, or whatever) all the way back to the boat and slap at it right as you're pulling it out of the water. It doesn't seem to help to periodically kill the bait during the retrieve either. It's incredibly frustrating! This is far more common with smallmouth which I assume are not the target species in Macon, but I've seen largemouth do it as well. I suspect spots would be even more apt to do it than largemouth, though I haven't fished for them for some time since moving to the Midwest.

My best guess for why this happens is that the fish see the boat as a wall or bank or something else they can use to pin the baitfish against. When I've had this happen in the past, I've started running the bait along the side of the boat before pulling it out of the water after every cast, almost like a musky fisherman doing a figure-8 except I'm not doing the entire figure 8 motion or sticking my rod into the water. I've caught a lot of fish like this, and it only adds about a second to each cast - they'll usually smack it as soon as the bait makes the 90-degree turn from running towards the boat to alongside it!

Make sure to check your knots often. The strikes that come here are vicious, and there's very little line out to absorb the shock.