Still being fairly new to the river game, only a few years in now, its taken too long to figure out the forage base. My particular stretch of river(SAF pool) has very very low shad base, and most articles and other bits of knowledge are pretty stacked with imitating your bait to the shad. Well for a year and half of trying to force feed the fish shad imitator baits, which are extremely effective on pools south of here, and failing misersbly, had me rethinking. Then cutting open several walleyes late last fall and finding 2-3″ catfish/bullies in them really made me think. And seeing Tom S. post on his kitty imitator made me finally seek out a bait that might fit my pool a lil better.
These things are pretty cool I must say. No scent as far as I know, some tubes I got are salted. Case Plastics if curious. For now they are just another plastic in my box, but hopefully they come through this season for me like I think they will. 
Spoke with several fisherman last year who said they had seen their first school of shad in the pool in years, as well as me, so maybe we can get a sustainable population and we can enjoy the benefits of them on coming years. 
, some pros on there were saying the exact thing Randy. And the main point was that these baits are quite effective on other bodies of water that don’t have gobies, they are filling that niche of baits that represent the sculpin family, which are native to many waters, and when used properly can put the smack down.
