Summertime Shorebang

This time of year the shorebang can be a blessing and a curse. I love to sight fish and the shallow water shoreline attracts a lot of fishy business. Being able to walk the shoreline with patience, stealth and good vision is key. Sometimes you see the fish and sometimes you see the cover. That breaks up the game into two categories; sight fishing and search fishing. Even if you are fishing cover this basic premise is true. Fishing from shore during the summer is definitely a mixed bag of search and sight.

(Above: Sweet summer time bucket picked out of the cover. This is a beautiful fish. Must release!)

Weed and moss cover is creating a lot of structure this time of year. This gives baitfish many more places to hide, feed and even breed. Bluegill are going into spawn mode right now and pumping more little fish into the scene. Mosquitoes, dragonflies and a bunch of other creatures are also multiplying like crazy. We are talking a bonanza of fish forage here. All of this activity combines together and the fish start binge feeding. Smaller fish swarm on the smaller food layer and the big fish bully up on anything they want. The cover is where most of the action happens but fish will suspend in open water too.

The shore angler can take full of advantage of this situation. Walking the shoreline or simply standing there I look for fish and then cover. Even little fish is a good sign. If they are hanging around some type of cover I throw my lure around that cover as close as possible. Cast, cast, cast again. I see movement in the water that resembled a small boil under the surface. Cast one more time out at the edge of the weed mass. WHAM! The line tightened up on the splash.

(Above: Beauty shorebang bucket. For some places…shorebang is the only game in town.)

The downside, the curse of the shorebang is that you can’t move 360 degrees around the cover and you are limited by casting distance. Sometimes the belly boat or other craft can get you away from the cotton and other gunk mobbing up the gear right now but for the most part it doesn’t. Not for bass anyway. The bass are right there in that heavy junk close to shore. Some places don’t allow boats and you have no other option than casting from shore. Either way, most of the fish are in that zone between shoreline and deep water. You have to brave the gunk and junk if you want some of that green bucket love.

Good luck and Good Fishing.