Need tips for fishing a limerock pit

[Wakfox]

I'm fishing a 22 acre limerock pit with almost clear water. I attempted today to fish off the bank and caught one two pound bass and several friends caught several pound to half pound bass on finesse worms. There is only about thirty feet of fishable bank.

The issue were having is the pond is approximately eighty feet deep and the owner of the property said he sent an underwater camera down and observed large schools of medium to large sized bass at about forty feet.  Being a limerock pit were snagging hard fishing from the shore. 

We have access to kayaks and John boats so we can go that route(preferred way). The owner said the pit is not fished regularly. Bass seem to be finicky and aren't used to anything but live bait. Should we attempt to fish with live bait or continue with worms,jigs and crank baits.  New to bass fishing and definitely new to fishing a limerock pit.

Whats your opinion? Attempted to upload screenshot of pit but it's too large.

[buzzed bait]

dropshot would be a good way to find them in deeper, clearer water like that

[Fishes in trees]

Success in strip pits happens when you understand strip pits.  There are several different kinds, most importantly they have things in common.   Think of strip pits as miniature canyon reservoirs.  There is a lot of "dead" water in canyon reservoirs.   Shallow water is at a premium and transition areas from shallow to deep are high priority areas.  These often aren't that easy to find, but there is always at least one transition area.   There has to be.   When the pit was dug, they had to have a way to get the machines out of the pit when they were finished.   Sometimes the path is obvious.   Other times, with erosion and vegetation growth along the banks the  path isn't.    In that case you need to spend time with a depth finder, finding that transition from shallow to deep.   In the process of looking for that transition area, I've had success throwing deeper diving finesse cranks ( like the larger sized shad raps)  parallel to the bluff walls.   Just like early spring jerk bait fishing, fish will often move up 10, 20 feet or more to hit a finesse crank in these conditions.    

Another thing to consider is that strip pits, even spring fed strip pits almost always have a thermocline.   Fishing deeper than the thermocline is generally non productive for bass.   Fish that you mark considerably deeper than the thermocline are most likely carp or gar.

Find the spot where the thermocline intersects the transition from deep to shallow water and you've probably found the sweet spot for that pit.

A lot of the stuff that you learn while pond fishing doesn't translate very well to strip pit fishing.  You've got to spend time on strip pits to figure them out.

Be mindful that most of this rant is predicated on the notion that the limestone pits in your neighborhood are similar to the coal mining strip pits that I'm familiar with.   If they aren't disregard this post.

[Florida Cracker2]

The pits in my area aren't that deep but are clear. I always had good luck with a weighted black worm with a red firetail.

[Wakfox]

Thank y'all for the input. I was worried about fishing from the boat or kayak would be counter productive due to the way it's structured with such a study decline. I started with a drop shot from the bank and caught my fish but also snagged and had trouble gauging strikes due to dragging up the side of a major drop off. I'm alot better at ponds as they are a lot easier to decipher. 

Against thanks and if anybody has anymore ideas by all means spill it