I actually have a boat, and still shore fish a fair amount!! Thanks for bringing this up.
Fishing rivers in my area is a gigantic, but extremely rewarding pain in the butt. The rivers are either too high, too low, or too narrow to navigate safely. The kicker is the ridiculous smallmouth bass populations that are kept relatively safe from anglers by these conditions. You sometimes gotta fight for those fish pretty hard!
My tips...
1) combat or hunting boots! They will keep you safe from shoreline junk, keep you from rolling your ankle on a rock, provide good traction for climbing banks, and keep your feet dry. I wear shorts and combat boots all the time, so it is fine if you do it too.
2) use a 5 gallon pail for your stuff. Pails are waterproof on the outside too... You can set your gear down in standing water without a care if it is in a pail.
3) Buy a map and scout!! You may not be able to get to the best structure, but you will be able to get to some of it. Keep a notebook with the water's features and how you get to it. A shallow oxbow may do you no good in august, but it will be a great place to return in the spring.
4) Don't be afraid to fish for "trash and uglies"! Shore fishing can be the very best way to catch carp, cats, bullheads and suckers. Night fishing for cats is too much of a pain to be enjoyable for me in a boat. I can pick out a piece of shoreline, strap on a headlamp, and fish till 2am and have a blast though!
These are a few of my hundreds upon hundreds of shoreline fish from this year....
Smallie, don't know exactly how big.... plenty big though.... I get into more of these than I care to admit fishing riffles in the spring.
Kids love suckers and they are sure fire hot action in the spring...
My favorite.... CATFISH!!! They don't get too big here, and only exist in the Mississippi, Snake, and St. Croix rivers in my area. Someday I will take what I have learned from catching these little guys up to the Red in NW Minnesota and try and catch some of those aqua pigs!!
