Hi,
Allow me to introduce myself. I am an Army transplant stationed at Fort Drum. I grew up in Kansas. Kansas has a total of about 5 lakes. It was a 2-3 hour drive to get to any one of them. They were all state parks which meant that you could just go there, walk to the shore and start fishing. Also, there were no trees (it was Kansas) so the entire lake was more or less available on foot. Since moving to upstate, I have made several efforts to get out to a lake and do some shore fishing. I have been to Lakes Bonaparte, Black Lake, Indian Lake (this one was ... interesting to get to) Black River Bay, and a few other places and what I run into is that any available shoreline is taken up by residential or is not walkable due to trees etc. I am resisting buying a boat because I move every two or so years and I (my wife) think it would be a pain to move it across the country every few years. I have scoured the internet to find a post or two about shore/bank fishing and have found very little. People don't want to broadcast to the entire internet where the good spots are. This is understandable, but maybe someone could give me a tip on how better to find some fishable bankline.