Keith - some guys on another board I'm on trade trips. I offered to trade some fly fishing trips to eastern WA lakes and was to receive a fly fishing salmon trip and another that was a combo shad/sturgeon trip.

The sturgeon guy would fish for shad and then when he had enough, use them for bait for sturgeon. Said he was able to use whole shad for some jumbo sturgeon. I wasn't able to make the trip last year because of home projects... also I told him I'd be perfectly happy just fishing for "bait". He's got a good sturgeon spots over on the Columbia below one of the dams. Said it's real good for shad too right there.

I used to live on the east coast and fished light tackle shad in the rivers there. Always wished I could do it again. American shad are lots bigger than Hickory shad and should be lots more fun. I used to target the Hickory runs back there.

Shad roe was very tasty once the concept of eating fish eggs was gotten past. This was in the early 70's and I was more finicky then than now. I consider squid excellent fare now... and back then it was just stinky flounder bait.