Father and son at castaic

[fishfinder]

Usually I take my son fishing at castaic, but this comming monday I am going to take my Dad. Seems like I really got down the bait and wait at castaic, when all of a sudden those pesky shad showed up. Last time I actually got skunked for the first time all year, I was in the middle of bass and stripers jumping all around us and they wouldn't take anything. Tried bait, topwater lures, shallow diving lures, nothing worked. Now I don't want to let my dad down cause he doesn't get much time on the water anymore, and every time I take him to castaic, well it hasn't been so good. I have read all the reports, but the ones you don't see on there are the ones where us bait and waiters bomb because we don't have much lure skills. My dad loves to troll, but we haven't had much luck doing that either. last month i was killing 2-3 lbers with bait, and would like to get him on something of that size. We will atempt to catch shad first, but want to have lures ready for some boil action. What are some of the best kinds of lures to throw? that we can wing out a ways, and that will produce some results. I have a lot of lures but never the right one at the right time. Also I was wondering if any-one knows how deep you can fish live shad before the pressure from going down so fast will kill them?
Hey thanks for reading this whole long questionere.