Let’s do some problem solving by considering three challenging situations. Start off by picturing a big reservoir like New Melones or Lake Shasta. 

It is late fall or early winter and the surface temperature is hovering in the lower 50’s. Big rainbows that have spent the summer holding in the thermocline and gorging on baitfish are now holding just below the surface. 

“So what’s the problem?” you say. “To catch them all I have to do is topline a spoon a couple hundred feet behind the boat and it’s fish on, right?”

Well, not exactly. While the trout are near the surface they’ve moved in very tight to the shoreline. Bank anglers are having pretty good luck with Power Bait and worms, but you are struggling to hook up out over open water. If only you could get your lures in close to the shoreline, but since it’s pretty rocky along the bank, you aren’t going to jeopardize your prop by venturing into the shallows. 

Next picture a big river such as the American or the Sacramento. Once again it’s late fall or early winter. There are king salmon and steelhead in the river. Since you don’t have a drift boat and with Christmas looming a few weeks away, you can’t afford to hire a guide, you’ll be fishing off the bank. 

As you’re walking along, drifting roe and casting spoons you come on a deep slot that is a long cast away on the other side of some fast flowing riffles. Just as you approached, a big chrome bright king rolled in the slot. Despite your best efforts, the fast water in the riffle keeps pulling your spoon out of the slot before it can get deep enough to draw a strike. If only you could get in a position to work the slot from upstream with a sardine-wrapped Kwikfish. 

Proceeding upstream you stumble on a big tree submerged in a briskly flowing pool. You are convinced that there are some steelhead down amongst the branches, but try as you might every time you drift a piece of roe to where you believe the fish are holding the current pushes the rig into the wood and you get hung up. If only you could work the snag from upstream with some roe rigged behind a diver.

So what do all these situations have in common? Well, they are all problems that can be overcome by employing a Bank Ease Planer. 

Now most trollers are familiar with planers and know that they can be used to overcome challenges such as the situation described in the first scenario with trout holding close to the bank. In this situation a planer would allow you to swing your lures in tight to the shoreline, while keeping your boat in deepwater and out of harms way.

But what about the two bank fishing scenarios; how would a planer help you work that far away salmon slot or the submerged tree where steelhead are holding? Well, while the Bank Ease Planer works just as effectively as any other planer in trolling situations, it was actually designed to give river anglers forced to fish from the bank an edge. 

Robin Moulder of Gold Hill, Oregon designed the Bank Ease Planer and I believe it is one of the most unique devices to hit the fishing scene in a number of years. Moulder’s planer is constructed of molded plastic and unlike many other planers it floats. The Bank Ease isn’t an “in line” device like many of the planers on the market that partially release from the line when a fish strikes allow you to fight the fish with minimal interference. 

Instead Bank Ease works as an independent unit utilizing a long piece of cord and an aggressively curved blade. When using the Bank Ease from the shoreline of a river or stream you can attach your fishing line to a release on the planer with the lure trailing the desired distance behind the device. 

Next you set the planer in the current and begin slowing releasing the cord. The planer’s curved blade steers the unit away from you with your fishing line and lure in tow. Once the planer reaches the desired area you tie the cord off and wait for a fish to whack you lure or bait. 

When the strike occurs and a fish is hooked, the Bank Ease’s unique tension spring release lets go of the fishing line allowing you to play the fish just as if you'd been fishing from a boat. 

In situations where you don’t want to attach your line to the planer before you let the planer out into the current on its cord, you can actual cast your fishing line across the planer after the planer is in position and the line will drop in the release automatically.

When Moulder went to work on the developing the planer back in 2004 he visualized a device that would allow bank bound salmon anglers to fish large sardine-wrapped Flatfish and Kwikfish in holes and slots that were formerly only accessible to boat anglers. The Bank Ease certainly shines for this application. 

For steelhead enthusiasts, there are a number of ways the Bank Ease can be used. Clearly it would work well for presenting a spoon such as a Little Cleo or a plug like a Hot Shot to fish moving through a specific slot or run. 

If you’re like me, and enjoy fishing with roe, it is a simple matter to rig up a piece of roe behind a jet diver or a Hot Shot and then using the Bank Ease, steer the offering out to a specific honey hole. 

This method is best described as “finesse plunking” since you get the benefit of putting your bait in the face of steelies moving up river, but when you hook up and your fishing line releases from the planer you get to fight the fish without a heavy weight attached to your line. 

In the scenario I outlined earlier with the steelhead holding in and around a submerged tree, it would be a simple matter using the Bank Ease to position some succulent roe or a night crawler just upstream of the snag in full view of any steelhead resting in the branches. 

These days I spend a lot of time thinking about striper fishing. Over the past couple years I’ve been experimenting with slow trolling live baits right along the tules in shallow water. 

While I’ve found that this method works at times, I believe that I’m spooking a lot of fish with the boat before they ever get a chance to see the bait. While I’ve yet to try it, I’ll bet the Bank Ease would allow me to present a lively bluegill or jumbo minnow in the shallowest of water without spooking any bass. 

I can also see where the Bank Ease would be a boon for trout anglers working big waters like the American River. When I fish the Middle Fork of the American, I’m pretty much limited to fishing the holding water on my side of the river because the river is so wide and fast. Using Moulder’s device it would be relatively easy to present baits or lures to spots on the far side of the river that receive little or no fishing pressure. 

The ability to present a fat night crawler to a 3 pound rainbow that hasn’t seen a baited hook all season…now that’s the kind of edge I’m looking for! For more information, visit www.SidePlaner.com.