If you asked me , I would say, look for creeks coming in the the river and fish the down river side. Look for slack water pools, that have been created, or current breaks. I guess this is 1 more cool part of shore angling, I can work up and down the shore line to find a good spot that will hold fish, while a bank angler would be stuck in 1 place

 

If the water gets high enough a technique called "dabbling" can produce lots of fish. All you do is basically walk the shoreline and "dabble" a minnow,nightcrawler,or whatever your bait of choice is.

 

Due to such low water levels the rain really hasn't made it "high" yet and the Fox certainly isn't raging.
Both suggestions are on target so until we get some really high water I would follow LK's suggestion.

 

Stalking & Matching from the Bank / Shore.

HI LK

The 3 main ways to fish from the Bank, or Shore.

1
Stalking
They are Stalking ( Hunting ) for spots to fish for your favorite fish.
While walking / biking the shore line looking for pockets, eddies created by fallen Trees, Bridges, Creek mouths, and Dam backwaters.

Stalkers only need 6
A small Bag of tackle, landing net, and Rod!
A great way to get / keep this is what the secret Challenger Chuck Thompson does at Bussy Woods.

2
Hunting BIG Carp, Catfish, Pike
This is done by pre-baiting, and or focusing on / in a spot you know holds BIG FISH!
Or where fish patrol there territory
2 or 3 rods where used where allowed?
Often with different baits often used for this style.
Anglers sometimes camp out for long periods, overnight.
Normally a lot more gear with them for this method.

3
Match Fishing
The Ultimate Challenge 2 ( for me )
Match angler need lots of rods, poles!
Lots of tackle as they never know what challenge will face them

Match Fishing the the biggest challenge to any angler 6

You have just 3 or 4 hours to master whats happening in front of you 5

Once you have your spot
You have to figure where the underwater breaks are, and remember how far they are 8
And then try to keep, or attract fish to the area you pick with Chum.

With anglers near you making noise catching fish, and Chuming its very very tough 6

Matchfisng has more participents than any other organzed type of fishing in the World.
In Italy 500,000 anglers dream of fishing for the Italian 5 person Team that goes to the World Championships.
Italy had about 5 million anglers last time I saw there statistics.

Paris World Cahmpionships
300,000 spectators watched each days fishing in center of Paris France in 2001
Many of the anglers from across the World failed to catch one fish
From the crystal clear River Seine.
It was a real challenge 2

Each one of the 3 types has to select a method to cacth fish in flood water, or clear 2
Get out and fish Mick Thill

 

landing net...we dont need any landing net 25

 

(not match question King)

I was asking the question to give those in the know a chance to inform people who will fish the river this weekend (with actuall water in it).

Our club fished the Fox sitting in the river bed 2 weeks ago and drew 16" of water so the rain was welcome!

King- we wouldn't pick a venue that was flooded- running too fast, that would produce bad fishing. The club would head for a lake. Walking around kicking fish can be over-rated if you haven't tried match fishing (since you mentioned it)... our last event on the Fox in the Rod & reel division was won with .3 lbs. - I know you could have done better King (where have you been?)

Where to fish a river when river is up?
I believe the answer is, when the current fires up, you will find the fish stuck to the bottom and pushed out of the center towards the banks and cuts. This means that fish can be in the first 2 feet of shore on a river in flood! (move slowly(like Mick says, stalk 'em) and no need to cast to far- work the edge from dry land). So don't go stomping up to the river's edge and start flinging lures out into the current, you may have scared the fish and then cast past them!

Like Ed said- it is not "raging" and is closer to normal than flood condition, but that can change in the next day or so. Salt Creek was up over its bank and definitlely in flood by me.

When it gets this wet, I hunt crawlers-- not fish. I have enough for a couple of weeks-
(Also got some micro crawlers for special occasion in Canada Mick)

John

 

If the river is raging, no real need for stealth.
Many of the fish will be within 1 foot of shore and stomping or not they aren't going head out into that current.
They'll stick tight to their safe zone.
During high fast water times I have caught as many as 7 species of fish from one eddy that was about 25' long and 15' wide.

I just checked the stream flow data and in Algonquin there's still only @ 850 cfs coming down the river so we're no where near a raging river.

 

I was out at SE last night and the water was NOWHERE NEAR expected. I imagined a flooded river with a couple nice pools, but when I got there, IT LOOKED THE SAME TO ME!

I think the water was a couple inches up - the concrete stepping wall near the dam was barely getting any water splashed over it.

Dave - who got the BIG ole SKUNK yesterday

 

I have to agree the rivers are not raging. They are what I would say is normal fall levels. I was out last night and all the fish were relating to Shore structure causing current breaks. Use as little as possible weight and drift your bait to the back of the breaks. The fish are not in the mode to be stalking them yet. They are holdig a foot or less off the bottom and it would be good to set your weight about a foot to two foot from the hook. Went out at &:00 after I droped the wife off and the dupage was up about 6 inches from yesterday evening,all I did was readjust my split shot to 2 foot instead of one foot. Caught 3 smallies and a carp in a half hour. All the fish were caught about two foot from the bank.

 

I remember doing some shopping with the girlfriend in Amish country near one of the best streams on the planet, and it was experiencing the worst flooding in over a decade. Of course, I saw this as just a challenge, so I grabbed the glove box rod, a big bead-head nymph, and went to work.

With everyone looking at me like I was insane, (Which was hard to refute at that moment.) I proceeded to pick Trout an Creek Chubs out of every bit of slack water I could reach. I just... dabbled. It works!