It's no secret that DEBO knows a thing or two about bank fishing for bass. Here's a little taste of what he is going to review in the video to get the reader excited to watch. Check this out...from the bank!  He's giving us the most important tips on how to be more successful, doing just that! See his 4 most important tips and let us know if you would add anything! And to learn more bank fishing tips watch this.

Video transcript:

Devon:
What's happening, everyone? My name is Devon from DEBO'S Fishing, coming to you on the Monsterbass channel to talk about four tips to help you become a more successful bank angler. These are four tips that I put together for anybody bank fishing. Doesn't matter if you're up north, south, I don't care where you're at, four things that will help you, things that I have learned when you're out there. Because listen, as a bank angler, time's often limited. You don't have access to the whole lake like a guy in a boat or a kayak, so being a bank angler sometimes does have its drawbacks. We're going to try to help you be more successful in the time that you have.

Devon:
So, enough yapping. Tip number one is be prepared. And I know you're thinking, "Seriously, I click on this video and dude's telling me to be prepared?" Hear me out here. For example, I got my Monsterbass bag and this month, it's the Carolina rig. So what do I mean by be prepared? Well, this is everything. Not just your rigging, but make sure you've got your rods. Make sure you've got your gear. Because if you're a newer angler, especially with something like this you get in the box and you're thinking, "Oh, a Carolina rig. No problem."

Devon:
The book that they include in here is great, because it takes you through and walks you through all the steps. But tying a Carolina rig, especially for somebody new, can take a little bit of practice. Make sure you've got all the stuff. Get your things together. You've still got to find your bait, put it on the hook. It's just a time saver to have it done the night before. Do it before you go out if you have any time, because listen, what's happened to me lately is I'll go to a spot. Let's say you're fishing with your buddy. You're not ready. Your buddy goes out and starts catching all the fish. You're automatically going to be upset and in a bad head space.

Devon:
Number two, I was out with my buddy. We were out fishing. I was rigging up at the truck, he was getting his stuff ready, and guess what? A truck pulls up behind us. Five guys get out and literally start fishing exactly where we were going to go. Again, it's not like I have a boat or a kayak so I can just go around them. Bank fishing, they took up the whole jetty inside we were going to fish, so we had to pack everything back up and leave. Right now, there's a ton of pressure bank fishing, so anything you can do to be prepared before you go out helps a ton. And I don't just mean be prepared with your rigging, everything else in this month's bag.

Devon:
They give you a sun buff. Make sure you got your buff, your bug spray, especially once the bugs start coming out, sunscreen, snacks, all that stuff. Because trust me, there's nothing you're going to be upset about more. For example, me, as a YouTuber, I get out there, get ready to go fishing and I forgot my camera, and it was an hour drive and I left my camera and all my batteries. All right. Moving on. Tip number two is fish the obvious first. I can't stress this enough. This is something that took me some getting used to as I was growing up. How many times have you heard people say, or you might be guilty of it yourself, you walk up to a spot to fish and you see two, three, four fish scurry out of there, and you're thinking, "Look, there's already fish here"?

Devon:
The first thing that I've learned to do is when I go up to a spot and if I think it looks fishy, stay back 10, 15 feet. Drop a couple close casts there, right by the bank where you're going to walk up to. Or if you're going to walk down a long jetty, don't walk down the jetty or the dock and scare everything. Cast next to that first before you move up to it. Fish that obvious spot where you're going to fish before you go up to fish it. Here's a perfect example. I got lucky here. I threw a couple casts from the bank here, ended up flipping to the log right next to me, literally right under me, and I ended up catching that bass on a Texas rig worm. And that was huge, because I very easily could have scared that fish out of there. Had I hit that obvious spot first before I even walked up, I probably would've caught it first cast.

Devon:
Another way to look at fishing the obvious first is fish what's close to you. When you're bank fishing, you can't maneuver around a brush pile or a rocky fishing jetty. Oftentimes, again, you're limited to where you can fish. So if you're fishing a brush pile that's 30 feet offshore that you're just cast into, cast to the close spots first. I want to cast to the front of it coming back to me, because if I hook a fish in the front there, I can bring it right back to me without any sort of obstructions. If I'm cast around at the back and I bring it through there, I'm scaring all those other fish in front of that brush pile or whatever it is you're fishing. So try to fish what's closest to you, and then work your way farther out. That way, if there's fish close and far, you're not scaring off everything close if you cast it way out there and bring the fish wailing through close to you.

Devon:
Okay, tip number three is focus on accuracy first. Accuracy over distance, I can't stress it enough. So many people go out, get a new bank caster, and what do they do? They walk up. The first thing they do is [inaudible 00:04:04] big, long cast clear out to the middle of the lake pond, wherever it is they're fishing. I'm telling you what, focus on accuracy first. Nine times out of 10, if you can hit the little spot the size of a dinner plate where you think a fish is and you can hit it the first time, you're going to be way more successful, because there's nothing worse than blowing up a spot, making a bad cast or a bad pitch, hooking tree and trying to get it out of there and disturbing everything around it, or you're skipping by a dock or something and you hit the dock pull and bang, scares everything in a 12-mile radius.

Devon:
The other big thing about that is you can get into places that other people don't often fish. If you're a bank angler and everybody casts to the close spot or whatever, but if you can get around or you can put it in a spot where nobody else can get to, you're going to increase your chances of being successful, hitting the stuff that other people either can't get to or don't want to because it's too much work. Now, another big part of accuracy, and this could almost be its whole own other tips, this could be a whole different video, and that's learning different casts.

Devon:
As a new angler, when I'm working with a new angler, I usually teach them the side arm cast first, and then develop that side arm cast into a roll cast. Then you can start working on the overhand cast. But the thing I see happening with a lot of beginners is they'll go out with an overhand cast, lob it clear up there, and the bait gets up in the air and stalls and they get a big, huge backlash. They're upset, right? Well, some people say, "Just use a spinning reel, right?" But the thing with learning different types of casts is you can get into different situations.

Devon:
If you walk out and you're bank fishing, and you've got trees and a whole bunch of stuff on either side of you and you can barely get through there, if you learn a good roll cast or a side arm cast this way, you can hit those spots that other anglers that don't have that, that just have a big overhand cast aren't fishing. Because oftentimes, when you're bank fishing, you've got trees above you, shrubs and bushes to the side of you, so you have to make the most with what you have, because you might be limited to two, three, four different spots on the pond that you can actually get out of and cast and that's it. So, having a pitch, having a roll cast, having a side arm cast, being able to cast left and right or even with both hands. I'm still not good at that myself. I'm mainly a right-handed caster, but being able to do that both ways will help you out a lot.

Devon:
Okay, tip number four is stay in the strike zone longer, and that's something that took me a while to get a hang of and to get used to, to be able to visualize where those fish are at in the water. It's something I've worked on and I still continue to work on as I grow. That's the awesome thing about fishing. You never stop learning. But stay in the strike zone longer. One really good way I can put this is instead of casting out into the middle of the pond, where you're not sure if there's anything there or not, you're bringing it up to you and a fish hits it six feet from the shore. You throw a few more casts out there and you're bringing it this way. A fish hits it six foot from the shore.

Devon:
Start paralleling the bank, casting to the left and right of you approximately six feet off the shore, because maybe there's a little drop-off there and that's where all those fish are hiding, or same thing with a brush pile. Try to get as close to that brush pile as you can and keep it in that strike zone as long as you can. You'll hear the pros talking about fishing the different columns in the water; top, middle, and bottom. If those fish are always hitting it on the fall, you've never had a single bite on the bottom, you're throwing a jig or a Texas rig, there's no sense in pitching a jig or pitching the Texas rig, bouncing it a couple times and then working it all the way back to you.

Devon:
If every bite's hit on the fall, maybe you adjust your weight and focus on different presentations, different flips, trying to make as many of those in there as you can to try to make that bait fall, because that's where they're hitting it. There's different ways to stay in the strike zone. Like I said, paralleling the banks is the big one. I don't see enough beginners and bank anglers, anybody, even if they aren't beginners, doing that. A lot of anglers, it seems like they're just out there fan casting and not necessarily trying to put anything together. So, paralleling the banks, trying to figure out where those bites are coming from and trying to replicate that, putting together a pattern.

Devon:
Now, speaking of a pattern, you know what? I'm going to give you a fifth bonus tip. When you get on a pattern and when you notice similarities in bites, try to recreate that. I know I just said that, but I want to hammer this one home, because this is one that will help you out a ton. For example, this is one that I don't see enough people pick up on. You throw a Senko out there or a stick bait and it's fluttering down, or you throw a Texas rig and you get a backlash, or you're on your phone, messing around. You're fishing slower, right? You're not really paying attention to it. You probably need to slow down if you start getting bites then.

Devon:
You're messing with your phone. You're not looking at your line. All of a sudden, oh, the fish takes it. It was just sitting there doing nothing. Whereas before that, you were throwing the wacky rig out and you were working it real quick and reeling it in. You need to slow down. Another thing I hear people say is, "Oh, it was crazy. I was out there fishing, and I started reeling it in real fast because I thought it had moss on it," and said, "I saw the fish come clear up running after it and attack it." Maybe those fish want something moving quicker, more of a reaction strike. They don't want something going by them real quick, because they get to look at it and they're like, "Nah, no thanks."

Devon:
So in that case, maybe you need to speed up. Maybe you were walking by a piece of wood, find wood, pitched wood. You catch a fish. You're like, "Oh, that's crazy. I can't believe a fish was on that log," and then you go the rest of the day and you're not even hitting wood or log. As opposed to being like, "Oh, I just got a fish on that wood. Maybe the sun's up a little bit more and those fish are holding tight to cover, holding tight to stumps, logs." Go out in search of those. If that's where you're consistently getting bites, don't be fishing all the other stuff.

Devon:
If you've hit three logs and caught three fish off each one of those, go out and look for those. Almost like cherry-picking, right? Go out to the spots where you can find that, recreate it. I'm telling you, as a bank angler myself, having a family, having a full-time job, oftentimes when you go out, it's not unlimited time. I don't have 12, 13 hours to fish. It might just be a couple hours after work here and there, so knowing those high percentage spots, listening to the fish, and trying to get on a pattern will help you out a lot.

Devon:
Those are my four tips for becoming a more successful bank angler. Be prepared. Try to get stuff ready the night before. Number two, fish the obvious stuff first. Try to fish the stuff close to you, then work your way out. That way you can catch all those fish close and far. You're hitting all of it. Number three, accuracy versus distance. I can't tell that enough to people. Accuracy, nine times out of 10 is going to save you so much, so work on that accuracy. Don't necessarily worry about being able to cast 100 yards.

Devon:
Tip four, stay in the strike zone longer. I'm telling you, work on paralleling the banks. Work on trying to figure out where those fish are at in the water column, and try to stay in that strike zone as long as you can. Instead of burning a spinner bait at the surface of the water, you notice that you let it fall down just to where you can barely see it and you're rolling it slow and you were getting more bites, try to replicate that. Try to put that in different spots and stay in that strike zone longer.

Devon:
And I guess that kind of gave you a fifth bonus tip, and that's work to put together a pattern. If you're noticing different things happening, either slowing down, speeding up, certain spots you hit and you're like, "Man, I've caught a fish on every log," try to recreate that. Especially if you're short on time, go out and find those spots at the places you have access to, and try to catch all those fish before you run out of time and have to go back to work or pick up the kids or whatever it is in our crazy lives.

Devon:
Listen, everyone. Do me a favor and comment below. Let me know, what is one tip that helped you become a more successful bank angler? I hope others can learn. I don't know the most. I am still trying to learn myself, so if we can get a bunch of comments down below and get other people learning and cool tips and ideas, I think that would be fun. I got to get out of here. My name is Devon from DEBO's Fishing, again, coming to you on the Monsterbass channel. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you all so much for watching, and until next time...