Dracula's Hiding in Them Woods

Hit the river with Muzkrat hoping to cash in on the success of my previous trip, but no go this day.  Fought a gusty wind all day long and only ended up with a 20# fish to show for it.  One key point that got hammered home that day was the need for fresh bait.  I'm always harping on the importance of fresh bait, but this day we had trouble netting shad and once we ran through our fresh bait, turned to some day old bait given to us that morning from a buddy we ran into at the gas station.  When the shad don't bleed when you cut 'em (we called it vampire bait), then it's not even worth putting on your hook.  We should have cut into our fishing time and tried to find more fresh bait, but we took the lazy way out and I think we paid for it.  Never again.