Essential Bank-Fishing Tackle Pack
This selection of gear carried in a handy satchel will help you tackle any fish
Tackle box: Tackle Logic Day Tripper System with a soft-side
carry case, five laminated zip-seal bags and a hard-plastic StowAway box with divided compartments that will carry everything for a day of bank-fishing (www.tacklelogic.com)
Three boxes of hooks: 50
Tru-Turn Blood Red Aberdeen Panfish Hooks, Size 2; 50 Tru-Turn O'Shaughnessy Catfish Hooks, Size 2/0; and 50 Tru-Turn Bronze Aberdeen Hooks, Size 6 (www.
truturnhooks.com)
Sinkers: Water Gremlin Pro Pack with 63 Snap-Loc sinkers and removable split shot (www.watergremlin.com)
Floats: Thill Gold Medal Float Kit Assortment with seven different balsa floats, five bobber stops, 10 red beads and six silicone sleeves (www.lindylittlejoe.com)
Lures: Beetle Spin Strip Pack with 10 Beetle Spin lures (www.johnsonfishing.com) plus
a selection of Rebel's perfect-
for-panfish "creature lures,"
including the Big Ant, Bumble Bug, Cat'r Crawler, Crawfish, Creek Creature, Crickhopper Popper, Hellgrammite, Tadfry and Wee
Frog (www.lurenet.com)
30 innovative tactics to help you catch more trout, white bass, bullheads, crappies, yellow perch and sunfish.
Jun 3, 2004
Bank-fishing is
probably the reason
why most of us came to
love fishing in the first place.
It's the most simple and cost-effective way to have the maximum amount of fun. It's recreation in its purest form: no muss, no fuss-just you, your tackle, some bait, the sky, the water, a warm day and fish.
When we think of bank-fishing, we
often remember childhood fishing trips with friends or relatives, dunking crickets in a farm pond and thrilling to the pulse of scrappy sunfish dashing to and fro at the end of a line. We conjure memories of dogwoods blooming along the lakeshore as crappies are pulled one after
another from a shallow-water brush pile. We think back to crisp autumn days fishing for perch from a pier, a starlit evening spent casting jigs to ravenous white bass, or that just-right summer afternoon when the bullheads snatched up every worm thrown their way.
Guess what-it's all still there, waiting for you. Why don't you go back to that place and time and take some kids with you? The following tips will help you make new fishing memories. esswill give you some options to consider.
Sunfish
No group of fish is more tailor-made for bank-fishermen than the sunfish tribe. They frequent shallow water most of the year and provide exciting fish-a-minute action for shorebound anglers of all ages. Many of us cut our fishing teeth while bank-fishing for these bantam prizes.
1Fish the Frenzy: Spring is the "good luck" season for bank-
fishing sunny fans. During the days just before spawning activity begins, sunfish go on a feeding frenzy to offset their reproductive growth spurt. Since sunfish are feeding more, this is a great time to catch them.
2 Watch the Moon: Another fact in the angler's favor is the concentration of fish during the spawn. There might be a dozen nests in an area the size of a car, and there might be several beds along a 100-yard stretch of shoreline. Because sunfish are crowding the shallows, they're simple to find and easy to catch. Look for the hottest spawning action around the time of the full moons of April through June, depending on your latitude.
3 Worm Sets: Offerings of small earthworms and crickets on No. 6 or No. 8 long-shank hooks are rarely ignored. Wear polarized sunglasses so you can better see the clusters of dish-shaped nests, then approach stealthily. Weight your presentation with just a single split shot, or maybe nothing at all except a hook and bait flung out with a long pole. When you feel the fish move off, set the hook.
4 Hit the Docks: Boat docks are hot spots for post-spawn sunnies. These structures provide shade, security and a smorgasbord of foods. Savvy bank-fishermen use a short, light spinning or spin-casting outfit to skip, flip or ricochet a bait or lure into even the tightest areas. Use unweighted crickets or slow-falling artificials such as curlytail jigs to mimic falling insects. Flip these under the dock and prepare for a strike as the bait falls.
5 Fast-Water Tips: Stream fishing shines in autumn. Flowing
waters aren't subject to the vagaries of turnover, so sunfish can be found in
familiar haunts. To catch them, rig a live-bait tidbit or small jig beneath a bobber. Float it past boulders, fallen timber, sloping gravel bars, underwater ledges and other cover and structure.
6 Pond-Water Tactics: If your goal is to catch trophy-class sunnies, focus your bank-fishing efforts on ponds. Nearly half of all state-record bluegills were caught from ponds, including many weighing
between 2 and 3 pounds. Some poorly managed ponds are inhabited by tiny, stunted bluegills, but those with balanced populations of predator and prey fish provide some of the best fishing available for heavyweight sunnies.
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