Golden Shiners

Golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas) are another soft-rayed, fusiform prey species that is commonly stocked in trophy largemouth ponds. They fill an important niche in that they grow to large enough sizes, up to 12”, that they provide ideal-sized prey for larger bass, but not large enough that they cause biomass issues like those caused by gizzard shad, which can grow to 20”, too large for any bass to eat. Golden shiners are the preferred live bait for trophy largemouth fishing in Florida. Our personal experience has been that whenever a pond or lake is found that has a sustaining population of golden shiners, that pond invariably has trophy-size largemouth.