How to River Fish from a Bank
River fishing can be a lot of fun as it requires a different rig and method to that of lake or reservoir fishing. If you were to google “river fishing techniques” or “how to river fish” you will most likely read about fishing at the right time based on weather and moon position or something in regards to having to actually wade in the river just to be able to cast out.
Well, if you follow me or have explored my site and found the fish finder app, you will know I am big supporter of how weather (barometric pressure) and moon phase influence fish depth and bite activity. But that applies to lakes, reservoirs and rivers.
River fishing provides a complexity that lake fishing doesn’t and it has everything to do with current, bends and vegetation/brush/trees that are inherent along the bank. I don’t believe the only way to fish a river is to have to be in the river. I have seen plenty of rivers that are too deep, moving too fast and are too cold to be subjected to while fish are awaiting to be fished.
River fishing is something that takes practice and loosing some tackle to master. The two primary methods of river fishing is either using heavy weight such as a pyramid sinker with a hook line attached further up on the main line or using a light float to find where the water is pooling at, which is the topic of this article.
Float Fishing on Rivers
One of the first things I learned to look for when river fishing is where is the water pooling at. I’m referring to the parts of a current that the water has broken away from the flow of the current and is circling back on itself making a pool. This pool section is a part where the water has slowed and if you got a float into that area it would no longer drift with the main current. This is important because if that is how a float responds, fish food would also respond the same way which would create an ideal area for fish to be feeding at. Second, those pools are great locations for fish to be resting at while taking a break from the river current.
Float Fishing Rig
Float fishing is using light tackle to carefully control small floats as they drift and find these pools of water within the river. These pools are not going to happen in the center of the full current, it happens along the sides of the bank so needing to cast far distances is not necessary. This is also where most of the obstacles exist such as fallen trees, debris brought from upstream, thick vegetation that attract fish. These obstacles can also eat up tackle if you lose control of where and what your rig is doing.
The trick to river fishing is to cast upstream and allow the float to move with the current and help it find the water section that is being broken away from the main current creating a circular flow resulting in the pool usually along the bank somewhere. Carefully moving the float to the edge of the pool but not to the limit it gets caught in the current will create enticing bait movement. There is no special bait needed to river fish. Use what works for you when you fish lakes and reservoirs. I am fan of jigs so I typically use mini-jig which inherently have a little weight which creates the drop action as you carefully manipulate the float within the pool.