Attn: Shore Fishermen

[jwo1124]

This post applies mainly to shore fishermen. More specificaly pond shore fisherman. I'll ecplain later.

I am one of the many who love to fish but do not own a boat. I am a full time college student and only work part time making peanuts. I own a 12' aluminum row boat I use to bass fish on a small secluded march pond. Its too light to take on bigger ponds, it just gets blow around. Its ok for trolling though. This leads me to shore fish most of the time, and most of the time I come up empty handed or catch 1 or 2 dink fish. This is due to the fact that if the fish aren't there you can't catch them.

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that to be a successful fisherman one needs a boat, bottom line. A boat is the fisherman's best tool. It allows you to cover all the water to get to where the fish are. When shore fishing, if the fish aren't close to shore, tough beans. But with a boat you can get out off the shoreline to that weed bed where they are hanging out. You can still have the occaisonal "good day" fishing from shore during the right time of year when bass (or your selcted species) is drawn to the shallow water for a number of reasons be it spawning, food, specifc temperature. Around where I am from(the north shore of Massachusetts) the Largemouth will be in close to shore late spring and early summer when water temps are right. But once the temps are in the 80's for a couple of weeks straight the ponds I fish heat up fast as the water levels start to drop pushing bass even further out off shore in search for cooler, more comfortable, oxygen richer water. (I'm guessing in lakes, I don;t fish them, that this problem isn't as big since it takes alot more heat to heat up a large lake than a small pond.)

Now the bass are not going to zoom out to the middle of the body of water but they will probably be twice as far off shore than they are in late spring/early summer. And they will be in deeper water closer to the bottom, hiding away from the hot sun.

This is where my problem is. Most fisherman use rods that are 5'6"-7'6". And this is good when fishing from boats or when the fish are right off the shore. But what happens when the fish push off shore during seasonal migrations, and you can;t get out on a boat? Why not implement some "surf casting"? Now salt water fisherman do this when fishing off of the beach, rocks, piers, jetties or other land structure. Surf rods are usually 10'-14'. I have heard of guys throwing plugs and bait as far as 100 yards...thats 300' off shore! Imagine the fish you could reach when you are stuck on shore?

I had an idea today that I should search for a longer rod so I can cast further off shore to reach fish out in deeper water. Does or has anybody done this or seen anyone doing this in freshwater? The biggest rods I have seen on Cabela's so far for freshwater spinning rods is 10'. They are Salmon fishing rods and are medium power 3/8 oz. - 1oz. This would be a great tool to chuck out lures to bass holding in deeper water cover or structure. I usually use a 6'6" rod, so if I use a rod with 3 1/2 extra feet I can get about 50% more distance. (this is an estimate of course but if you do the math...) So if I can cast 75' with a 6'6" rod I should be able to cast an extra 30-40 feet. Thats a big help for the shore fisherman.

Today I got up early at 5:15 am drove 20 minutes to a local pond and was shore casting a 1/4 oz. Pop-R popper and a Rapala crankbait. At about 7:15, alittle over an hour from sunrise I saw bait fishing busting the surface trying to escape schoolin bass below. (If you've seen this you know what I mean) This was happening in the middle of the cove where I was fishing about 30' away from where casts were maxing out at. So if I could have had an extra 3 1/2' of rod and a 1/2 -3/4 oz. lure I could have reached these fish and probably other fish staging at the same depth/location/distance of shore as these fish. Instead I was left frustrated and fishless. I know that using such long rods in bass fishing is not main stream and many tournaments don't allow rods over 7'6" I read some where. But for the die hard amateur fisherman without a rule book to follow, a longer rod could mean more fish when casting from shore.

I am going to try out this freshwater surf casting and see if my luck changes. I know since the past 6 weeks have been mainly in the 80's the shallow waters of these ponds close to shore are too hot and don't have enough exygen for bigger game fish like bass. That's why you'll only see bait fish, fry, and sunfish(all relatively small) in the shallows in the dog days of summer since they are they only ones able to handle the temps/ oxygen levels. Logically speaking, a 2 lb bass will need 8 times the amount of oxygen as a 4 oz. sunfish. I'm not a biologist so I don;t know the truth to that but you know what I'm getting at.

Anyway, anyone whos tried this let me know, and anyone who has the means to try go ahead and give it a shot and let me know. Happy Fishing.

[jwo1124]

I found this on Cabela's web site.

http://cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/item-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat20166-cat20374&id=0006768112353a&navCount=21&podId=0006768&parentId=cat20374&masterpathid=&navAction=push&catalogCode=IH&rid=&parentType=index&indexId=cat20374&hasJS=true

Its an 11' composite rod that holds reasonable lure sizes. It got a 4.9 out of 5 stars through 14 reviews.

Those who are interested check it out. I'm definatley getting one.

[LooksLikeSinbad]

A boat is the fisherman's best tool.

True. But I'm stuck on the shore and trying to make the most of it.

Here are some tips I've found useful:

- I found that using a higher-end baitcaster allows me to cast much further. That may be a better investment than a pole-vaulting stick  ;D  

- I also recommend wading into the water if it's not too cold. You get much more room to cast and you can get closer to depth.  

- I also would recommend getting a topo map of the body of water and looking for depth drop-offs close to shore.  

- Fish a T-Rig as a bottom search bait dragging it along the bottom looking for structure. Once you find a rockpile, brushpile, etc. fish it thoroughly with different lures and as many different angles as possible from the shore.  There is often a few places that you can fish deep from shore.

Good Luck!

[lubina]

Well, I'm one of the many that own a boat but love shore fishing too.

Grossly about 60 % of my fishing time is from shore, just b/c my life style and natural resources makes it though. I fish pretty much year around and about 2-4 time a week, my tackle goes from 5.4-7.11, any kind of presentation but live bait ( I favorite big swimbaits ). By far I would not be able to enjoy that much if I would be restricted to boat fishing.

Now, most of my fishing happening on my way to work or while working, and most of my lunkers also came on that time, most of my best fish came out from non-boating waters.

jwo. a "successful fishermen" is a personal definition, how you enjoy the fishing experience is what it counts

Good luck

[boatlesswonder]

Well being in the same boatless configuration as yourself, over the years I have came to the following conclusions. If your not catching fish, move to a different spot. 9.9 out of ten times it is not your equipment. Try to find a near by feeder stream that feeds the lake, no you most likely wont get trophy size largemouth, but walleye, smallmouth, and trout are normally in abundance. You might also check in your local area to see if there are any fishing clubs(sources of great information and most of the time friendly boaters). Just some humble thoughts.

[Marty]

I have done a huge amount of shore fishing all of my fishing days plus I've gotten out in boats thanks to a couple of boat-owning friends. And this year I bought a canoe just to give me a little independence in getting out on the water.

Shore fishing can be be incredibly rewarding or frustrating. I've never had the numbers shore fishing that I've had at times from a boat. But nine out of my ten biggest bass have come from shore. Maybe that means I just stink at boat fishing, but regardless, I'd hate to have not caught caught those fish.