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Limited Color 917
Golden Shiner Time
Story by Russ Bassdozer

Due to popular demand (and a desire by some of the pros here to replenish their supplies of 917 for the 2004 season), we have a limited quantity of 7X Kahuna Kut-Tails available in Golden Shiner (color #917). They're in our online store for a limited time.

Olive-green on back, a shimmering golden-silver sheen on their flanks, the Golden Shiner is a native of the Canadian Maritimes, Eastern US, south to Florida and Texas. Widely introduced by fisheries biologists as a forage fish in the Western USA, Golden Shiners are the most common live bait fish sold in the United States.

The bright, flashing appearance and prolific numbers make Golden Shiners an important forage for shoreline-oriented species of game fish ("Bass!").

They are schooling forage that prefer the proximity of the shoreline and find comfort in the same weedy, brushy cover preferred by bass. How convenient!

As a kid, I caught them by the numbers many days for fun and for bass bait, using a miniature gold Aberdeen fly hook baited with a wee ball of raw Ballard biscuit dough, the kind that comes in the cardboard canister. You peel the foil wrapper off, and "BOOP", you pop it open. Those were the days, my friend.

I did not know they were Golden Shiners then. Like everyone else at the time, I simply called them "Roach", another common name for them.

Well, here they are, say no more. A school of gleaming Golden Shiners swims in every bag of #917.

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