any tips on fishing canals from the bank?

I do quite a bit of canal fishing from the bank.  I'd be glad to share some info with you.  First question........where are you?

Get a 10 foot bank rod, some corn, nightcrawlers or prepared boilies, pepper the area you want to fish with corn, and bait a circle hook with a crawler or hair rig with a boilie. Sit back and wait for a monster carp to bite. Hang on as they fight like freight trains. That's canal fishing Chicago style!

If your canal has rip rap banks like the erie canal, you can get free crawfish out of the rocks.  You don't even have to get you hands wet, stick you worm between the rocks and watch em grab it, then hoist em up.  Canal bass looove crawfish.

Some tips I got was to fish deeper... As the water might be pressured, so think deep. Pretty much all I can say.

I plan to fish a local canal this summer and try my luck. When I was younger, my dad caught a 7 pounder from that small canal.

I love to cast wacky rigged senkos underneath trees that are leaning over the water that are producing some kind of shade. Always get hits under there.

sirsnookalot: I am in Southern California

I am trying to get tips for catching bass out of these canals as we have both small and largemouths in the canals

we also have catfish, carp, and grass carp

I'm in Florida and I'm not familiar with California canals. In many of the canals I fish we have both hydrilla and water lettuce (hugs the banks). What I will tell you is applicable to a high vegetation area but will work on a cleaner canal.

Bass...........Weedless set up plastic worm of your choice

                 work parallel to the banks(flukes work well too)

                  if you can cast across to other bank, just drag your bait into

                  water slowly, do not overwork it.

                  If you work lures, cast just outside the vegetation,

                  my go to lure is tw popper even on hot sunny days.

Catfish........raw chicken livers and bobber, sit back and relax

Grass carp...Vegetarians for the most part, guys use bread down here

                  try with a bonding agent to hold on hook better

                  maybe molasses, some one may have a better agent.

Hope this helps you to get you started, don't be shy to ask again.

                 

I wouldn't know anything about a canal from the bank, but there is a canal that flows out of a lake by my house that i have gotten a 12ft boat into and caught fish in there. Didn't really get into the "canal", just about 100 or more yards into the inlet. It was awesome. There were lillipads on either side, about 5 feet out from the boat. The main water column was about 13-15 feet wide. The water was only about 7 ft deep. We were pitching worms and jugs in the lillipads. I hooked up and landed a small largemouth, and my brother hooked into about a 3 lber that got off. At that same lake on the same day, I hooked into something big on a soft craw, fought it for about 10 seconds, then it got off. oh well.  ;D

Good luck!  8-)

thanks for the advice everyone

I will try casting across the bank and pulling it in slowly

I have done that before but not on purpose I was trying to cast just before the other bank came out of the water and a few times casted just onto the bank

Try it, I know it will work for you, let me know.

Here is a little tip for you.  If and when you tough snag, don't pull the rod, pull the line with your hand, it will free up much easier.

I fish more man made canals than I do natural water.  Try where cover changes from grass to brush, grass to bare bank etc..   Also make an effort to look for drainage ditches and culvert pipes that drain into the canal.  Especially when water is flowing.  But even if water isnt flowing, the bottom will be dredged deeper there.

Also make an effort to look for drainage ditches and culvert pipes that drain into the canal.  Especially when water is flowing.  But even if water isnt flowing, the bottom will be dredged deeper there.

Excellent point.

Good points above. Also be sure to work curves and bends very thoroughly asell.