By Richard Sims
Fishing in deep water is not a strong point of many bass fishermen. Whether it be those just starting out or even a seasoned pro, we know that finding deep bass on some days can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Our alternative? Fish shallow, and usually fish the shoreline structure of a lake for those shallow bass. The problem? These bass are highly pressured and sometimes won’t hold in the huge concentrations that deeper bass will. Shallow water bass aren’t herding up on a secondary point, waiting to ambush schools of shad. Usually they are territorial, hiding behind logs or in patches of grass, waiting to ambush a prey fish like a bluegill or stray shad. Big fish are tougher to catch from shoreline cover, but maybe with a little patience and knowledge you can pull trophy fish from the shallows like a pro.
Why are bass found on the banks? Well, all structure, deep and shallow, acts as a roadway to bass, which they follow day after day, season after season to different areas where food, oxygen and cover can be found. The simplest roadway for a bass to follow is right along the shoreline! Think about it. The shoreline is usually littered with different forms of cover. It juts out and has cuts, bays, river mouths and points which provide an ambush point for bass. Waves slapping against a shoreline regularly stirs up algae and crustaceans, which baitfish feed on and in turn bass feed on the baitfish. The wave action also provides an oxygen source, as do river mouths and ditches/outflows. Basically, big bass need food, oxygen and cover to survive and the shoreline has plenty of it to offer!
Does deep water offer food, oxygen and cover? Yes. Does deep water produce big fish? Yes. If you fish hard enough and long enough you may find deep spots where bass can be caught left and right. But the truth is that deeper spots tend to be less reliable as far as catching fish goes. You are also limited on what lures you can use when fishing deep. You rely more on electronics as well, and let’s face it: some anglers still don’t have expensive sonar units, which puts them at a disadvantage when others are on the spot with their high priced sonar systems and underwater cameras. Fishing deep also requires spending a lot of time reading topographic maps. That’s fine if you have time to plan your trip before heading out, but sometimes you just want to go out and catch some bass on a new lake and you really don’t want to study a map for hours trying to find secondary points, humps and ditches in twenty feet of water.
Alright, so now we know why or why not we fish the shoreline. So which shorelines do we fish for monster bass? What lures do we use? Are we going to have huge numbers of fish if we do this right? Is it possible to catch trophy fish from a shoreline where other anglers have fished seemingly all day?
First off, shoreline cover can be a confusing affair. It varies from season to season which exact pieces of structure you should fish.. But try to remember, you’re looking for 3 things: Food, oxygen and cover. Find a shoreline with these three things, and you’ll find at least a few fish. Lakes vary across the nation from muddy, featureless shorelines to weedy, mossy bogs that you wouldn’t dream of tossing a conventional lure into. All of these will hold fish in certain areas. A general rule to learn is that trophy fish will usually take the best structure/cover on the lake as their own. This usually means the most obvious spots are where you’ll find a trophy fish. Simple enough you say, you’ll go fish the most obvious looking shoreline area with conventional tactics and catch yourself a big bass! No, it’s usually not that simple.
What you need to remember is that big fish don’t get big by chasing down their meals daily and roaming from spot to spot. Big fish get big by being lazy. They wait for food to pass by them, and give a quick ambush before returning to their home. Sometimes they get their prey, sometimes they don’t. They only need one or two big meals a day to stay big, as opposed to chasing a school of shiners around. What does this mean? Slow down! Offer bigger baits than others are fishing, at a slower pace than others are fishing. Usually this means making your lure look like it’s dying. Big bass can’t resist a free meal of a dying baitfish if it’s right in front of their face! This can mean twitching musky baits next to potential cover, or simply flipping a jig/pig to your bass until he eats it. Over the years I have caught numerous big bass simply by fishing shorelines, using some simple tactics that you can use too. Here they are:
Fish Low-Light
Shoreline-oriented bass are usually the most pressured in the lake. So how do you get a bass to bite when he sees lures go by his face all day? Fish before anyone else! Be the first to get to the fish, or fish at times when others don’t. The bass won’t be expecting a lure then. Bass do get conditioned to seeing lures at certain times of the day. It’s a fact that there will be less lures flying by their faces early in the morning or late in the afternoon as the sun sets, or even in the middle of the night. These are times when bass are most active (especially during summer) and even big ones will readily hit faster moving lures. The name of the game is being different. Part of being different is showing up when nobody else does. Fishing in the rain can also be a good strategy as most weekenders will be off the lake if it’s not optimal conditions.
Use Different Lures
Big shoreline bass, no matter where you are, can be coaxed into hitting a topwater lure at the right time. Topwater lures seem to represent the meal of the biggest fish in the lake. Think about it. Only a bass with a pretty big mouth will readily take a big bullfrog, duckling, baby muskrat or mouse from the surface. So it makes sense to use a big surface lure that represents these creatures! Bass like to hunt surface baits during low light usually, as it offers them a better ambush standpoint. At night those little creatures will have a really hard time seeing Mr. Bass come up and swallow them! If you’re not fishing during low-light times, you just need to present something different to the bass than they are accustomed to. Sometimes this just means a minor change like color or blade size, or sometimes it means a completely different lure. For instance, the next time you see a bass boat beating the bank with spinnerbaits, try fishing the same area with a crankbait, fished in the thickest cover - where nobody else would dream about throwing a crankbait. You may lose a few lures throughout the day, but you may also gain a few trophy bass!
Work Spots Thoroughly
Never make three casts to a log and move on. You might catch some small bass this way or get lucky once in a while and nail a big one, but chances are you will need to coax a big bass into biting. Work a good looking log or laydown with one lure, and after 15-20 casts, switch to a different lure and work the same spot over from different angles. If there’s a big bass there, eventually you will annoy him into biting. If you’re fishing finesse baits or slower moving baits, make sure you give them lots of time in potential spots before making your next cast. Sometimes the bass just needs to be persuaded into hitting.
Go Natural
Big bass are among the smartest fish in the lake. They inspect their food before eating it as usually they have been caught at least once in their life. They may just notice if your crankbait is running slightly to the side, or if the skirt has been heavily damaged on your spinnerbait. Basically you want the most natural approach to convince that big bass that your bait is food. During the day, this means switching to more natural colors like white, silver, chrome, perch, red/crawfish or baby bass. At night or low-light periods, regular shades of black, grey, white or red will probably do you best as bass don’t have very good color vision in extremely low light. All they see is a silhouette of your lure. From personal experience, bright colors like chartreuse or firetiger are nearly useless at night. In muddy water make sure your bait is visible to a big bass. Shock him into biting with brights like chartreuse, florescent orange or even pink.
Pay Attention To Detail
Always wear polarized sunglasses when fishing a shoreline. Sometimes the big bass will be sitting right out in the open near the cover you’re fishing, and you would miss them if it weren’t for the glasses. Look for spots within spots. For instance, if you were fishing a laydown and fished every branch without a bite, but then noticed a small tree stump under the main log of the tree, you would flip your lure to the stump. Quite often that is where the biggest bass will sit. Remember? They choose the very best cover in the lake. If you’re fishing a spot and you see surface activity like jumping bluegill, a spooked turtle or even a massive school of minnows jumping, you might want to fish the area where this is happening. Perhaps with a topwater bait. The name of the game is paying attention to detail. Also, keep an eye on where bass bit your lure (i.e. what type of cover, where on the cover he hit, how fast the bait was going) and try to develop a pattern throughout the day.
Fish Secondary Structure/Cover
You know a couple of years ago on my favorite lake, we were fishing the shoreline as usual and not doing too well with conventional tactics. We worked the usual hot spots to death and we couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t get a bite from a big fish. Well as we were motoring past a usual unproductive stretch of shoreline, my spinnerbait was dangling behind the boat about 5 feet back when all of the sudden I had the familiar strike of a big bass on it! I stopped the motor (it was an electric motor as there are no gas motors allowed on the lake) and after I landed the 4lb beauty, we continued fishing where that one hit, and pulled several more nice fish off of that spot. This was only 10 ft out from a shoreline that looked like nothing more than a mud flat. Well, later on we learned that this “featureless†shoreline was actually a drop off to a gravel bar where these fish were sitting and apparently feeding! Sometimes moving just a little ways back from the shoreline and fishing deeper cover/structure that others may be passing over is the key to catching big bass.
You can see that with the proper knowledge, catching big bass from shoreline areas can be done, and with a little bit of practice and patience you can do it too. Sometimes simply being different and straying away from the other anglers and the norms can land you trophy bass from areas where they would never be expected.. Even in small or pressured lakes! Keep at it, never stop fishing, be safe on the water and best of all catch a trophy. Good luck,
Richard Sims
