Shore Fishing Tips: Believe it or not, fishing from shore is hugely popular worldwide. Let’s face it, we anglers will do whatever it takes to get out there. If it is shore-only access, we’ll take it. Fishing is in our blood.
Some anglers that use boats (bass anglers in particular) bring forth a sense of irony. They (we) launch our rigs, and the first place we normally go is… to the shoreline! The exact areas that shore anglers are utilizing!
Let’s be honest: If we have a boat, we’re gonna use a boat. Take away our boats, however, and we will adapt to the shoreline. Those that do not have boats are the anglers that are already used to firing out from the bank in hopes of connecting with a shallow water swimmer.
The following are five techniques, baits or general shore fishing tips that we highly recommend.
(Also, for those in our neck of the woods, don’t forget to check out our earlier article about our Top Five Shore Fishing Spots in Southern Ontario.)
Learn to Fan Cast (1 of 5)
Fan casting is a technique that I’m sure bass anglers came up with in an extremely natural way. The need was to cover as much water as possible from a set position. In a bass boat, once you are relatively stationary, you need to work the area completely in about a 160-degree span (with the center point being the bow of the boat).
Shore anglers can do exactly the same as the bass pros do. This allows you to work that wide span of water in front of you and cover different depths (the casts out to the sides work shallower water than the one straight away from you).
The following diagrams should help explain.
This is how a typical bass angler works an area with a bait. The goal is to cover as much water as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Learn to fan cast and you will catch more fish from shore.
Continue to Page 2 for more Shore Fishing Tips for each section of the water column.