I fish some Kayak online tournaments and struggle to consistently hit North of the 19 inch mark. I'm wondering if buying a 5 inch bull shad would be a good strategy to target those quality fish rather than quanity.

I don't have much luck with them for largemouth, but smallmouth crush them. I've got a 5" Bull shad that I've put miles and miles on and has caught countless big smallies on it. Easy to fish, launch it across shallow flats and points where the wind is blowing across or into and crank it as fast as I can without it popping out of the water and wait to get my wrist broke.

I have a few thoughts here that can hopefully help!

 

1. The Bullshad is a great bait for smallies. I have caught a ton of good smallmouth on the Bullshad in the rivers and creeks local to me. However, if you are after largemouth I feel like there are a few other baits I would check out. Not saying the Bullshad doesn't catch largemouth, because I know it does, but I personally have had better success on other baits for largemouth. If I were to only buy one for largemouth it would probably be a Jackall Gantarel Jr. or a River2Sea S-Waver 168. If you are fishing for smallmouth then I would stick with the Bullshad, even the Baby Bullshads work well for smallies.

 

2. When it comes to targeting larger bass is not always the baits you are throwing but the area you are fishing and how you fish it. I cannot tell you how many kayak tournaments I have fished where I was beat by people throwing a Ned rigged Z-Man TRD or a 4" Senko. I have caught several of my biggest fish in a certain lake on a Z-Man Chatterbait. In that same lake the fish wont look at any swimbait I throw even if it perfectly matches the baitfish they are feeding on. 

 

My advice would be to get a few swimbaits and spend some time with them on the waters where you fish tournaments. Fish the same areas you normally fish with smaller baits and cycle through your baits as you go. In each spot throw the swimbait for a while then switch to something that you know catches fish just to see if they are there. If fish are there, go back to the swimbait and fish around a while longer. If you do this a few trips and still are not getting larger fish on the swimbait then check out new areas in that lake or river that you do not typically fish and do the same thing, cycle through the regular baits and swimbaits. The most important thing though will be to take note of where the swimbait fish come from and how they bite. I have found that the bigger fish I tend to get on swimbaits are most times a little deeper than the fish I am catching on regular baits. If you figure something like that out, use that info to change how you fish the rest of the day. I have been on patterns before where I will fish a ledge and catch a few average fish then pull off the ledge into deeper water and throw a swimbait and find larger fish. 

 

Swimbaits may help, but you also may find that your simply fishing different areas or working baits different than those in the tournament who are catching larger fish.

 

Good luck!

I know this is an old thread but I thought I might chime in. The Bullshads are absolutely worth it and get chewed. If you have a swimbait rod and have a combo that can comfortably throw a 2 ounce plus bait get the 6" . My recommendation for a good rod to throw this on would be a Dobyns 795 . That said the 5" will work better if you don't have a rod/ reel combo for the bigger baits. The Bull shad works well at times with slow steady retrieve however this video featuring Mike Bucca the designer of the bait  will show he recommends it to be fished. All I can say is that this bait is considered a must have amongst many hard core swimbait anglers because it's accessible and produces year after year