Yeti

Thanks, man! Tight lines to you too!

I've thought about getting a long handled net, but I would need one about ten feet long. That's just completely impractical for trying to shore fish. I like the idea of a longer rod, however. Gives me an excuse to buy a new setup. As far as rod strength goes, do you have any recommendations? The rod I was using was a 6'6" Carbonlite M-F, the replacement for an identical rod I broke trying the same thing. As far as walking up to the water, I would have to walk a good distance with a bass out of water. When I catch smaller fish, I usually just toss them back in, but I wouldn't want to do that to a bass. Thanks for the response!

The problem wasn't the line breaking, the fish shook the hook while I figured out how to get him out of the water without slamming him against the wall. The walls are rough enough to tear your knees up, and I don't want to hurt a fish trying to land him. Thank you for the advice though, I will keep that in mind should my line break when fishing this area.

Hi everyone, I've got a question for those of you that bank fish or have experience bank fishing in places with high wall along the shoreline. I lost a fish the other day due to not being able to winch him up the side of a 8 foot high wall at a local lake and I am looking for ways to retrieve a fish should this scenario repeat itself. My question is, how would you land a fish and safely release it without having close access to the shoreline. Parts of the lake have boat tie ups and a beach area, but the area I was in does not have any of this within 200 yards. Attached is a picture of the type of wall I am dealing with, not in the same area as I was fishing, since it has quite an obvious place to land a fish. Thanks, Andrew P.S: This is not my photo and I make no claims to it. It is just being used for demonstration purposes.

Thank you for the kind welcomes everyone. I'm already dipping my feet into posting on the forums.

No problem. Woods Canyon is weird. I've had days that I've caught 20+ fish and days that I catch nothing. Having a lot of people there doesn't help, either. Town Lake is good for figuring out techniques, but if you want to catch a lot of fish, go elsewhere. Good luck!

My first bass was in one of the canals near my house. My dad had just found these little tiny fluorescent green jigs (1") and decided they would be good for bluegill. He didn't know how to fish them, however, thinking that they had to be fished vertically, right next to shore. I decided to try casting across the canal, and sure enough, a little largemouth hit it. He was maybe 10" and was more orange than green. The canals around here are nasty, so I have no idea what he had been eating to make him that color, but I decided that bass fishing was more fun than hunting bluegill.

I've learned that slow rolling a spinnerbait off the bottom works really well at Tempe Town Lake when they won't bite on most other stuff at night. When I say slow, I mean really slow, as in barely moving the bait on the bottom. Gold Colorado blades have been the best to me. At TTL, the bridges are good places to hit, but it is extremely pressured there. If going to Canyon, Saguaro, or Bartlett, I have never night fished there, but a wide wiggling crankbait has worked for me when there is low visibility. The issue there is access. I hope this helped a bit. I know it's tough to find fishing advice for Arizona, especially from the bank.

I exclusively fish from the bank here in AZ and while it is difficult to get deep, it's not impossible. That being said, even when it's 105 at 8AM here, I have found fish shallow (<10 feet of water). I would echo Brian's thoughts about going in the early morning, trying to get there before sunrise and fishing with the sun behind you. I always seem to spook a lot of fish when coming up on the shoreline, so having the sun behind you makes it harder for them to spot you. As far as lure selection, if you know where they are, stick with the T-rig. I have more luck fishing Texas Rigged from shore due to being weedless. Without knowing where they are, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and lipless cranks are what I usually use to locate them. Good luck and drink plenty of water.

Thank you Darren, and that's a beautiful fish you've got in your profile picture.

Hi everyone, I've been browsing Bass Resource since 2007 or so, but finally decided to check out the forum. It seems like there is a great community here and I hope to be able to learn a lot from the more experienced members. I'm not a great bass angler by any stretch of the imagination, but if anyone needs to learn how to fish trout in a mountain stream, I'm your man. I've always shore fished, but I am looking into buying my first boat sometime in the next couple of years. Anyways, glad to be on the forum and hope to talk to you guys soon. Thanks, Yeti