Drawn To The Shallows

Thinking deeply about fishing skinny water with quieter outboards, bow-mounted trolling motors, and specialized rods and lures.

Changes in both attitude and gear have created a quiet, slow-motion revolution in the world of inshore saltwater fishing. Back when today’s sage anglers were learning about the new breed of graphite fishing rods, casting a line in waters just a foot or two deep was mostly limited to the Florida flats. But today, anglers along the East and Gulf coasts regularly ease through knee-deep

water casting for redfish, speckled trout, and striped bass. Why has fishing the shallows with light tackle become so popular in so many places? And what are the top tactics you need to know to have success in shoal water?

Thin Water Thrills

The “why” is easy to answer: Few forms of fishing are as thrilling as spotting your prey before making the cast, or watching a fish explode through the surface on a topwater lure. Also, fishing the shallows can be incredibly productive, at many times in many places more productive than heading for deep water. Fishing the shallows can also mean fishing in areas that are more protected than open waters, and it can lead to more chance encounters with diverse wildlife because so many creatures thrive at the junction between the water and land.

Back in the day, however, boats with inboard engines were, of course, unable to access the skinny waters. And in the age when most boats were inboards, few anglers focused on fishing in areas so difficult to get to. The advent of reliable, quiet outboards on modern fishing boats greatly expanded the waters available to recreational fishermen. And then the popularity of bow-mounted electric trolling motors made it possible for anglers to stealthily probe shallow creeks, cuts, and shorelines, casting all along the way. As tech evolved, the shallows not only became easier to access, fishing them also became more effective.

In recent years, the equipment developed for and enjoyed by shoal water anglers has expanded and now includes such goodies as electrically actuated shallow-water pole anchors, side-scanning sonar, and autopilot-equipped trolling motors. We’ve become adept at sneaking through skinny waters in complete silence and complete control, whether we’re casting plugs to tempt striped bass in Shinnecock Bay or seducing snook with streamers south of Sarasota.

Shoal Water Strategies

Along with all the advancements that made accessing the shallows easier and more effective for anglers, there’s also been a vast improvement in fishing gear. More sensitive rods coupled with thinner yet stronger lines deliver a one-two punch for light tackle anglers, as they can cast feather-light lures for a country mile and feel every nip at their bait.

Speaking of bait: Which will be effective and how it should be fished will vary radically depending on the location and the target species. That said, many light tackle shallow water anglers prefer to fish with artificials, as it’s usually considered more fun and more challenging to fool the fish into biting as opposed to tempting them. So, which lures do most anglers consider tops in the shallows?

• Topwater plugs stand head and shoulders above all other types of lures for generating blasts of adrenaline, thanks to the explosive strikes they generate. So while working a topwater plug might not always be the most effective way to catch a fish, it’s often the first thing shallow water anglers will try. These tend to work best in low-light conditions, usually at daybreak and sunset, and are generally most effective when cast to structure or shorelines in very shallow waters. They fall into two basic categories: walkers and poppers. Walkers are retrieved with the walk-the-dog presentation, a rhythmic pumping of the rod tip which causes the lure to swim in a zigzag along the water’s surface. These shine brightest in calm conditions. When it’s rough out, poppers come into play. Retrieved with sharp jerks of the rod tip that trigger a pop-pop-pause presentation, they can call in fish from afar with all the commotion they create.

With either type of topwater lure, when a fish strikes it can be jarring. An angler’s natural reaction is to immediately swing the rod back to set the hook, but it’s critical you hesitate for a second. React too quickly and you’ll just yank the lure away from the fish. Even when you play your cards right, the fish will often miss your hooks when they swipe at a topwater lure. Some anglers swear you’ll get more follow-up hits if you pause the retrieve at this point and merely twitch the lure in place, while others believe that you’ll tempt more of them into striking again if you continue the retrieve. Like many things in fishing, there’s no well-defined “right” or “wrong” in this case, and different anglers will have different opinions.

• Spoons are a classic shallow-water offering, and while their popularity has been eclipsed by more modern lures in recent times, many anglers who measure their experience by decades rather than years still throw them. Spoons are a good pick for bright, sunny conditions, and since their retrieval depth can be varied, they’re a great pick for fishing shallows with depth changes, slight channels, and drop-offs. There are weedless varieties, too, which may be mandatory when fishing around weedbeds. The critical factor is that there are many different shapes, sizes, and types of spoons, and you don’t want to try using a fast-sinking spoon in skinny water. Light, thin, cupped wobbling spoons (the Johnson’s Silver Minnow, patented all the way back in 1928, has long been known as the benchmark) are in order.

There’s no big secret to effectively retrieving a spoon. Simply cast it out and retrieve at a constant rate while adding in a twitch of the rod tip now and again. If you feel it rubbing bottom, speed up and/or raise your rod tip. And if you want to work it deeper, slow down and/or lower the rod tip.

• Soft plastics have become one of the favorite offerings among modern dedicated shoal water anglers, and there’s a long list of advantages to using them. Tie on a jighead, and you can swap out different tails to change your offering’s color, shape, size, and action. Tie on a different size jighead, and you can work from shallow to deep. You can slide on a tail that’s enhanced with flavor or scents, choose one that floats or one that sinks, and opt for paddletails, twistertails, straight tails, or fish tails. Plus, when a fish grabs a soft plastic jig it usually doesn’t spit it out as quickly as it might reject a hard bait, giving you more time to set the hook.
  
  There are so many different types and styles of soft plastics that it’s tough to generalize on the best way to fish them. At times you’ll find it most effective to give them a steady retrieve. At other times, a herky-jerky retrieve does the trick and bouncing them along the bottom is often quite effective. Rigging a soft plastic under a popping cork works wonders in some situations, too, especially when there’s a couple feet of water over a weedbed. Whatever you might try, the real trick here is to keep trying different lures and different retrieves until you nail down the style that generates the most bites at any given time. And fish can change their preference from week to week, day to day, and even tidal cycle to tidal cycle – so when you aren’t getting bites keep experimenting.
  
• Crankbaits are essentially plugs like topwater lures but with a lip that digs into the water and forces the lure to dive and wobble from side to side as it’s retrieved. The size and type of lip, as well as the buoyancy of the crankbait itself, determines just how deep the lure can swim. When fishing the shallows you’ll naturally want to use a shallow-diving crankbait, and usually picking one that floats or is neutrally buoyant is a good move. Note that there are also many subcategories of crankbaits: jerkbaits, stickbaits, square-bills, jointed, and so on. All can be effective when shallow-water fishing, just as long as the color, profile, and size of the lure match the hatch. Note, however, that crankbaits are quite popular in freshwater venues and many are designed specifically for bass fishing. When using one in saltwater environments, it’s critical to choose a lure with hooks and hardware rated for the task.
  
  Merely retrieving a crankbait through the water will give the lure quite a bit of action thanks to its design. Most anglers, however, will add in some extra motion by sweeping the rod tip back a bit every third or fourth crank of the reel. With suspenders and floaters it can also be quite effective to pause the retrieve entirely at times and give the lure a tiny twitch or two before you resume reeling

Finding Fish In The Shallows

Naturally, you can only catch fish if you’re casting where they live. And just as it’s true in deeper water environments, in the shallows you’ll most often find fish where there’s structure, where there’s bait, and especially where there’s both.

Structure in the shallows can be any hard object, like rocks, trees, pier pilings, or oyster bars. It can be channel edges, even if the channel is only 2 feet deep running through a foot of water. Weedbeds, sandbars, and sod banks make the list, too. It can also be the water’s edge where it meets the shoreline itself, especially if that shoreline is armored in riprap. And in areas where shoreline retreat is common, lines of riprap that were unsuccessfully used to protect the shoreline in centuries past – and now sit far off the shoreline – can be incredibly productive structure.

Generally speaking, fish found in the shallows will be individuals or in small pods or schools as opposed to the large schools of fish sometimes found in open water. So shallow-water sharpies usually stay on the move. It’s always worth taking a few follow-up casts to a spot that produced a bite, but after catching a fish or two, if several casts go unrewarded, moving on is often the best move. Remember, you have that trolling motor on the bow so you can stealthily continue along that shoreline or weedbed edge, so use it to your best advantage.

As you move along and cast, don’t be lulled into complacency by the peacefulness of your surroundings, the wildlife, and the sound of water lapping at the boat’s hull. Because every gaze holds the possibility of spotting a tailing fish, and every cast of the lure has the potential to trigger an attack. When you’re fishing in the shallows, you’d better be ready for that blast of angling adrenaline at any moment.