Getting deeper from the bank

[Bojangles]

..A couple of questions for you bank fishing experts: How do you access the deeper parts of the impoundments you fish? Are you content to fish the upper parts of the water column..or do you take the chance of hanging on rip-rap or structure that you cannot see? What are your favorite lures to get "lower" from the bank?

[CRFisher]

More of a beginner than an expert but I switched to braid to avoid losing any baits, you can haul in most of what you get caught on worst case.    I tend to go with weighted soft plastics, a texas rig or a jig avoid hang ups better than a treble hooked crank.    I've also resorted to a lot of heavy spoons for casting distance when you can't reach the deep water with typical cranks or plastics.  

[Grey Wolf]

Carolina rig.

[PondHunter]

Since I learned to pitch and flip to cover near the shoreline I dont cast to the middle anymore. Even when I could cast that far, I never caught any fish way out there, they were always closer to shore. Many times I haves seen some of the biggest bass in a lake cruising the shallow inside weededge.

Its kind of funny that I always see guys on shore casting to the depths, and the fisherman in boats usually casting to shoreline cover.

[Marty]

I've done a huge amount of bank fishing, but am not an "expert." There are exceptions, but most of the places I've fished offer better fishing closer to the shoreline, as a previous poster noted. Thus, I try to fish parallel to the shore most of the time and try not to think about the areas out there that I can't do anything about.

[bigmountaineer]

Exactly parallel to the shoreline is where it's at

[Pond-Pro]

Most of the areas I fish from the bank are fairly shallow.  However, when I want to fish deeper waters, a heavy Texas rig will usually do the trick.  I have also used a Carolina rig from the bank with success.  Lastly, do not be afraid to throw top water baits or suspending jerk baits.  If the bass are aggressive enough they will come out of deep water to hit your bait.  Good luck!

[Raul]

The how to depends greatly on the contour of the lake.

Some lakes I fish are practically flat with a minimal degree of slope, getting deeper ( if such thing is necessary ) mean that you would have to try to cast farther to achieve a little bit more depth, however 90% of the time I don 't need to go "deep", I need to find the proper structural features that will hold fish which may not necessarily need to be deeper.

On the other hand, in some other lakes I fish going deeper is a lot more easy, just cast 2 ft more into the lake and there you got, DEEP. But why go deeper if all the action happens 0-10 yds from the shoreline ?

[kms399]

anybody wade anymore. i used to walk out to about chest deep and fish. i did pretty good that way too. it let me get to the spots you couldn't get too from shore because of brush,trees etc.

[Bojangles]

Tremendous thoughts! Thanks for the sage advice! More than I expected even from this great forum!