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[kingmotorboat]

This thread is an eye opener here

[Catt]

There's couple threads round here that I saved for future reference!

[Smalls]

As a bank angler, how can I identify what is a “restaurant” and what is the “den”, or a route?

 

For this purpose, let’s say I have a general sense of what is below the surface say up to 40 yards in front of me, and I know that I can often find bass there. 

 

For example, I have an area I fish that’s roughly 1/4 mile along the shore. There’s rip rap, a slight drop off, and then grass. I’ve caught bass working a number of lures at varying speeds.

 

I might be off here, but reaction baits like a crankbait might either mean they’re hungry and chasing, or it’s an opportunity meal. Where if they’re eating a football jig being dragged, it’s in their living room and it’s more of a nuisance than a meal. 

[Catt]

@Smalls First we would have to know what type of body of water ya fishing.

 

Pond, creek, river, bayou, lake, reservoir?

 

[Smalls]

Well, I was asking in more of a general sense of clues I can key in on to figure out what this area is to the fish- den, feeding area or travel route. I suppose my example might’ve diluted the question. 

[scaleface]

7 hours ago, Smalls said:

Well, I was asking in more of a general sense of clues I can key in on to figure out what this area is to the fish- den, feeding area or travel route. I suppose my example might’ve diluted the question. 

Good question . I mean take a manmade brush pile for instance . Is it both ? I'm not going to go fishing with these questions . I'm  just not that advanced as an angler.

[Catt]

18 hours ago, Smalls said:

As a bank angler, how can I identify what is a “restaurant” and what is the “den”, or a route?

 

To understand this one has to look at the entire body of water!

 

[Smalls]

11 minutes ago, Catt said:

To understand this one has to look at the entire body of water!

 

So unless I’m fishing a pond where I can reach most everything, I may never know?

[Catt]

16 minutes ago, Smalls said:

So unless I’m fishing a pond where I can reach most everything, I may never know?

 

Ya can look at a small snippet of a body of water & expect to understand it!

[slonezp]

 

20 hours ago, Smalls said:

As a bank angler, how can I identify what is a “restaurant” and what is the “den”, or a route?

 

For this purpose, let’s say I have a general sense of what is below the surface say up to 40 yards in front of me, and I know that I can often find bass there. 

 

For example, I have an area I fish that’s roughly 1/4 mile along the shore. There’s rip rap, a slight drop off, and then grass. I’ve caught bass working a number of lures at varying speeds.

 

I might be off here, but reaction baits like a crankbait might either mean they’re hungry and chasing, or it’s an opportunity meal. Where if they’re eating a football jig being dragged, it’s in their living room and it’s more of a nuisance than a meal. 

 

1 hour ago, Smalls said:

So unless I’m fishing a pond where I can reach most everything, I may never know?

Reread @WRB original post and break it into sections. Then think about the basics. We always forget about the basics. Where is the restaurant? Where is the forage? Why is the forage where it's at? Did the restaurant move down the block? So, the forage is there but why aren't the bass? Well, maybe they are still waiting for the restaurant to open or sitting in the lobby waiting to get seated.  The wind to pick up, the sun to come out. Cloud cover. The moon. Drop in pressure. What is a route? Simple, it's a break. Simpler, it's an area where 2 or more different things come together. What is a den? It's the safe zone. Simple, it's cover and/or deep water, deep being a relative term.

 

I think it's wise to learn the habits and patterns of all the fish in the ecosystem, especially the bait.

 

 

[Smalls]

4 hours ago, slonezp said:

 

 

Reread @WRB original post and break it into sections.  

 Your post kinda smacked me in the forehead, and gave me more sense of it. Thank you. 

 

5 hours ago, Catt said:

 

Ya can look at a small snippet of a body of water & expect to understand it!

 I agree, for the most part. I think as a shore angler, we might only be able to understand small sections of larger lakes. With such small clues, and so much missing information on what’s out beyond our reach, that theory might not work on larger bodies of water. 

[Catt]

4 hours ago, Smalls said:

 I agree, for the most part. I think as a shore angler, we might only be able to understand small sections of larger lakes. With such small clues, and so much missing information on what’s out beyond our reach, that theory might not work on larger bodies of water. 

 

So ya just walk up to any random area on the bank & aimlessly start casting?

 

I bank fish quite often & wholly understand the limitations involved. Unless I'm pond fishing I still spend time studying maps before I hit the bank.

 

The biggest limitation of bank fishing is access to the waters edge.

[Smalls]

4 hours ago, Catt said:

 

So ya just walk up to any random area on the bank & aimlessly start casting?

I’ll study google maps before heading to a new spot. But it doesn’t show what’s under the water. So yeah, I’ll drag a football jig around pretty aimlessly to get a feel of whatever is down there. 

 

You wouldn’t believe how many awesome ponds I see on Google maps I see and can’t fish because there’s no access

[Catt]

45 minutes ago, Smalls said:

I’ll study google maps before heading to a new spot. But it doesn’t show what’s under the water. So yeah, I’ll drag a football jig around pretty aimlessly to get a feel of whatever is down there. 

 

You wouldn’t believe how many awesome ponds I see on Google maps I see and can’t fish because there’s no access

 

There's contour maps available most any body of water with the exception of ponds. You'll might have to do some leg work to find them cause they aint on an electronic format!

[Djamesbond3]

On ‎7‎/‎24‎/‎2009 at 4:17 AM, Catt said:

I've found and telemetry studies have verified especially in manmade reservoirs is there are bass that are highly residential and there are those that are nomadic. There are bass that are shore line related and there are those that are main lake related; both shore line and main lake have residential and nomadic bass. I tend not to target those that are nomadic opting instead to zero in on those the stay at home.

Once you have found key structure where the residential bass live you have found structure that will produce year after year. While fluctuations in lake levels from year to year will change shapes of weed beds and weed line the bottom break lines/contour lines remain the same.

Now with the living room found it is a simple matter of circling it with your electronics and a map in an ever widening pattern looking for the feeding area; with the kitchen located you must fall back on Structure Fishing 101 which states the following.

Bass must have a visible path of breaks and break lines on a structure from deep water all the way to the shallows, which is where the bulk of food is available to game fish. As bass move along a structure they pause or stop at "things"breaks and break lineson the bottom. It is at such "things" that anglers can expect to make consistent contact with fish as they migrate along a structure. This is why a certain stump or flooded tree, dock piling or submerged rock consistently produces bass for anglers. Most of the time, such a spot is merely a break or bass stopping point on a structure. Find more such breaks on the structure, or break lines, or even the deep water sanctuary near the structure, and you'll catch more and bigger bass more often.

There may be many structures, breaks, and break lines in a body of water. But only a few of them are so well related to deep water that schools of large bass consistently use them. Thus, the search for good, fishable structure can be a quick one, with often much of the work done simply by studying accurate contour maps of the water.

Im trying to get a grasp on what you mean by breaks and breaklines.  Is a breakline for instance where the weedline stops? Also, is a break like a ledge?

[Catt]

59 minutes ago, Djamesbond3 said:

Im trying to get a grasp on what you mean by breaks and breaklines.  Is a breakline for instance where the weedline stops? Also, is a break like a ledge?

 

Breakline: A breakline can have more than one meaning. It can be another word for a drop-off/ledge, or a point of any quick change in depth. It can also be used to describe the edge of a vegetation line. For example, a "weed break" is the area of the weed bed where the weeds meet up with open water; or, where one type of weed meets up with another. The last example happens when bottom composition changes, as different weeds prefer different types of bottom composition. In rocky impoundments, a breakline can also describe a line where rock meets mud, pea gravel, etc. In other words, the most correct definition for a breakline is "Any distinct line that is made by cover or structure which leads to an abrupt change in bottom depth, composition, or cover transition"

[slonezp]

18 hours ago, Smalls said:

 Your post kinda smacked me in the forehead, and gave me more sense of it. Thank you. 

 

 I agree, for the most part. I think as a shore angler, we might only be able to understand small sections of larger lakes. With such small clues, and so much missing information on what’s out beyond our reach, that theory might not work on larger bodies of water. 

You might have more within you're reach than you think. In addition to maps that @Catt mentions, take notice of the shoreline. On naturally occurring lakes as well as large man-made impoundments, many times the shoreline configuration continues under water. Steep shoreline=steep drop. Gradual shoreline=gradual drop. Rocky shoreline=rocky structure.  Brown dirt to red clay=Brown dirt to red clay. etc. You can notice key queues in vegetation. Lilypads=hard bottom. Hydrilla=soft bottom. Coontail=hard or soft bottom. Look for queues in current. Current from a spring, current from a drainage tube, current from a sump, current from a funnel. Current from boat traffic.

 

One more thing for a shore fisherman to think about. As shore fishermen, we spend our lives trying to cast our lines as far out as we can. Once we buy a boat, we spend our lives trying to cast as close to shore as possible. Just a thought, but maybe looking for what's beyond your reach is being counterproductive. 

[Smalls]

5 hours ago, slonezp said:

Just a thought, but maybe looking for what's beyond your reach is being counterproductive. 

  I always thought that was kinda funny. I learned pretty early on that making casts along the shore was key. I bet 75% of my fish caught were within 15 feet of land. Overhanging trees are always my first casts. 

[kingmotorboat]

I don't bother with contour maps on calcasieu cause I firmly believe everything has changed so much to when they were made