frozen salted shad

[hillbill]

hey guys, has anyone any experience with salting shad and freezing them? guy told me to put shad in ziploc bag with liberal amount of salt, shake them up and freeze them. he say shad remain tough, dont get mushy  and when thawed are almost like fresh shad for bait.he say they do this on west coast with alewives and mackeral and such they want to keep for bait. anybody know anything about this?

[50 Calshtr]

This is an old trick that works well, just be sure to us noniodized salt.  Preserves and toughens the bait, you can also soak it for awhile in a heavy brine and then freeze.

[seaphantom]

I fish down at Panama City, there we use cigar minnows,shad herrimg,LY,
hardtails,and popeye as King Mackerel bait, and everytime someone goes down there, and catches about 200 sigar minnows, they go home and lay them out on cookie trays, salt them, and freeze 'em... till the next year to use as bait.
These last for years...

Why tha hek do they use salt for mummies? :?  lol

[hillbill]

i tried the salted shad thing and it works great. the salt actually keeps them from freezing solid and they are about 90% as good as fresh and waaaay better than regular frozen shad.

[jtrew]

If you have skipjack in your area, they will freeze much better than shad because they are oilier.  IMO, they're an even better bait than shad.  I've heard that mooneye are oily like skipjack, but I've never seen one, so I don't know.  When you put a piece of skipjack in the water (even if it was frozen), you'll see an oil slick coming off it.

[John]

I've been thinking about freezing some shad myself. There's times when it's hard to catch fresh shad and I figure some frozen would do for a backup on days like that.

I was thinking about using some of that Morton's Tender Quick salt....that's what we use to cure meat with, and I figured I'd soak the shad in a brine for a day or so before I froze em.

Anybody do that ?

[prairiedog555]

Around here locals swear by those bottled shad.  The local walmart can't keep them in stock.

[spinafish]

mooneyes are slimy on the outside..I don't know about how oily they are..but skipjacks make great catfish and striper bait..

[backstrap]

I have used the salted shad before and i have had no luck with it here where i live we get gizzard shad if u frezz it and then when u tholl it out it gets mushey and falls of the hook so now when we have extra shad that we want to keep we put it on a window screen out in the yard and let it dry out this brings the oil to the surfuce as they dry out and when u use it u can see the oil in the water i wouldnt know y u would want to put salt on any bait the fish u are catching in fresh water is not used to the salt so there for not going to bite it near as good as if it is natrol thats just what i have experenced