The stifling, frying pan, hot summer season has somewhat relented for much of the midsection of the country and temps have cooled to bearable in most areas. That will mean that bass will again be on the feedbag and chasing shad -- a fun time of the year! 

 

The shad have reached 3-4 inches and are a perfect meal for feeding bass. When they start busting shad, you better have the right bait tied on to take advantage of the action. This is no time to be digging through the tackle box.  As quickly as they come up, they disappear and that means you must have a bait that can cover the entire water column.

 

We find that a Big Bite Baits Super Shad Swim Bait or a Dean Rojas Cane Thumper combined with a Jewel Swim Gem is just the ticket for targeting crazy feeders. The Super Shad comes in 4-, 5- and 6-inch sizes but we like the 4-inch Super Shad combined with the 3/8- and 1/2-ounce Swim Gem to cover top, middle and bottom of the water column. Because of the combined weight of the bait and head, it allows anglers to cast it long distances to blow ups. It also works great with long sweeping hops off the bottom. Most hits occur with the bait moving but many times they smash it on the fall as well.

 

Jewel Swim Gem	Big Bite Baits Super Shad

 

 

The Super Shad has a handpainted, scaled appearance with 3D eyes and comes in 14 great colors. The Jewel Swim Gem comes in 3/8, 1/2 and 5/8 ounce sizes and comes in shad and chrome.

 

The neat thing about this combo is it can be "waked" on the surface for some heart stopping action as well.