I’ve used sucker steaks on circle hooks, half of a 8 inch sucker on 10/0 hooks and little slivers of sucker on circles. All have worked well at one time or other.
Today I got my hands on some (help me out here Bob) 10 inch(?) shad…pretty big by most standards…from Mr. Bob Moores’s limited personal stock.
I started out around 8:30 with stink bait. Guess it wasn’t a stinky kinda night.
Then switched over to about 1 inch strips of shad fillet. When I was cutting it up, I looked at the head and said to myself…hmmmm. I reeled in a line and switched to my flathead rig with a 10/0 set up. Hooked the guts and poked the point out through it’s chin…gave it a toss into the shallower 18ish feet of water. Set the line out alarm and figured I would forget about that rod because anything that takes THAT bait is going to make lots of noise!
Twenty minutes later the rods bending but no clicker. I’m thinking it was the boat moving in the wind..nope fish on! I was really expecting a flathead but ended up with a scrapper 8 pound channel. Scrapper as in the kind that get to boatside and spray your face and glasses with a couple flips of the tail?
Ok…that was one…but one fish does not a pattern make.
I cut off a fillet that was 5 inches by 4 inches and plopped’er out there. Ten minutes later…I hear the line out alarm. Lift up the rod in free spool and out goes the line…fish on! Five pounder with another hook and mono stuck in it’s lip.
Now all this time I’m changing the little piece of shad I have on my circle hook thinking that one of these cats have to pick it up…but nary a nibble.
Then the weather radio goes off…thunderstorm headed right my direction. Go figure… I was ready to toss out a whole stepped on 10 incher and go for a state record!
So I’m getting everything put away, the dishes washed off (cut bait board and knife…motors running and the one rod with the fist size half slab of shad on it is going “boink boink”. The wind is picking up and the lightening is well…too close and I have a fish on. 
I didn’t weigh it, but I’m guessing a 3-4 pounder.
These three fish were caught in an hour and a half fishing time. All on bait that I figured only a big flat would be interested in.
So my question is “what size is too big”?
I hope to get out tomorrow and find out.