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Mail Tribune - Southern Oregon's News Source
September 21, 2006
by Mark Freeman
'Bank-Ease Planer' made to please 'Bankies'
GOLD HILL — Robyn Moulder took an age-old trick for fishing off river banks with lures meant for use in boats, added some hi-tech twists and now is about to yank the "bankie" world into the 21st century.
The Gold Hill native has created a molded plastic "side-planer" system that allows bank fishermen to fish for chinook salmon effectively with large lures designed to be fished from boats.
His buoyant "Bank-Ease Planer" is tethered to the bank by a thin rope and fed into the current, where a curved blade carves into the current and holds itself in place. The planer has a clip to the line in a way that a large plug lure — such as a large Kwikfish that is popular among Northwest salmon anglers — can dangle several feet downstream and wiggle in the current like it would if fished from a stationary boat.
When the salmon bites the lure, the tension spring releases the line from the side-planer, allowing the angler to stand on the bank with his rod and reel. The angler then battles the fish with rod and reel as if he hooked it while in a boat, then simply left off at the bank.
"That's what I designed this thing for, to fish Kwikfish from the bank," says Moulder, a 34-year-old co-owner of a family construction business.
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The poor man's boat retails for $34.95.
The system works with all sorts of lures or bait. It can be fished from the bank or — as done with similar products in the Midwest — it can be used on boats to spread out trolling lines.
Portland-area guide Bob Toman carries them on the Deschutes River, where one of Moulder's planers helped a 90-year-old man catch a 12-pound summer steelhead Tuesday.
"It definitely falls into the neat-gadget category, and there's spots where it's really slick," Toman says. "On a smaller coastal stream, this thing would work everywhere."
Others have bought them to fish for striped bass out of boats in Utah, kokanee in Washington and lake trout in the Midwest.
"The more I use it, the more other people see what I'm doing and tell me how they're going to use it," Moulder says.
And now, Moulder has to sell it.
After selling out the first 140 hand-made planers this year at local tackle shops and outdoor shows over the past year, Moulder's about to hit the market big.
Moulder and business partner Bruce McFarland of Grants Pass are set to receive their first mass-produced shipment of 3,000 side-planers Oct. 15 from a Chinese manufacturer.
"This is it," says Moulder, who says his group has about $90,000 invested in the project so far. "We can't unbreak the egg."
If Moulder catches a break, he has a chance to make a big splash in the relatively small pond of side-planer anglers, says Buzz Ramsey, the former Luhr Jensen fishing-gear icon familiar with Moulder's work.
When Moulder began the first of dozens of prototypes made largely of wood, Moulder pitched his design to Ramsey two years ago, who passed on buying it but encouraged Moulder to keep fiddling with his contraption.
"He's a neat guy," Ramsey says of his encounter with Moulder. "Luhr Jensen wasn't interested because we felt it was too niche-y of a market. I never thought you could sell too many, but I could be wrong.
"It could really turn into something," Ramsey says. "There's always that possibility."
Through history, anglers relegated to the rivers' shores have been obsessed with possible ways to get themselves or their baits off the bank where they can get access to more fish.
American Indians and early settlers built long "salmon boards" into the Rogue or Columbia rivers to put their baits or lures in the current.
In the 1950s, Rogue fishermen using large wooden floating boat-like contraptions tethered to shore as a way to hold a submerged lure or bait while awaiting migrating salmon or steelhead.
In recent years, plastic side-planers attached to the line have dragged lures into the current, but many consider them clumsy and cumbersome while battling a hooked fish.
Moulder's creation is the latest generation of these ideas, but his includes buoyant plastics and special fasteners.
Moulder's foray into the world of building better mousetraps began in the summer of 2004, when a neighbor explained to Moulder what the old-style, large, wooden side-planers looked like.
Curious, Moulder began working on designs of his own, tweaking the concept and upgrading the components.
"Fishermen are natural tinkerers," he laughs. "This is tinkering and not letting it go until you make it work."
After catching a 5-1/2-pound cutthroat trout on a Bank-Ease prototype, Moulder was hooked.
After demos at regional outdoor shows led to sellouts, Moulder and his investors thought big and now will see how many bank anglers they can turn into Bank-Ease devotees.
Moulder is confident interest in his planer will take off, once bankies see the possibilities.
"It's such a good idea,' he says. "It works. It has to work."
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