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Rogue River Press
December 21, 2005
by Scott Jorgenson
Local man hopes his fishing product hooks it big
Every so often, a person is lucky enough to blend longtime passions with practical pursuits. Gold Hill resident Robyn Moulder, a lifetime fisherman and owner of local construction company, has done exactly that with his new invention, the Bank-Ease Planer.
Moulder said the idea for the fishing product came to him about two years ago.
“I just wouldn’t let it go,” Moulder said.
Driven by his vision, Moulder began building his prototype out of whatever was available – which happened to include wood, a clothespin and some beads.
“It worked real good, but it was ugly,” Moulder said.
Once he had assembled his contraption, Moulder headed to a nearby tram to test it out. And much to his surprise, he caught a five-and-a-half pound cutthroat and a half-pound steelhead.
“I was just playing with it,” Moulder said. “I wasn’t expecting to catch anything.”
Vindicated by his initial success, Moulder set about perfecting his design, going through “boxes of prototypes” in process.
“I knew exactly how I wanted it to work, I just didn’t know what materials to use,” Moulder said.
After several tries, Moulder managed to find the balance he was looking for. The Bank-Ease Planer was now highly visible and light, going from it’s original four-pound prototype to its current eight-ounce model.
It’s a long ways from what it looked like to begin with,” Moulder said.
Moulder said his product is fully adjustable and can be used for any kind of fishing. It enables its user to fish from both sides of a river, and get to areas inaccessible to boats. The Bank-Ease Planer has other added benefits.
“This way, you’ll be able to fish larger lures for salmon from the bank without losing them,” Moulder said. “There’s very little, if any, loss of fishing tackle.”
“There’s a good need for this in the Northwest because of all the bank fishermen,” Moulder said.
The Bank-Ease Planer is already available at the Rogue River Ben Franklin store. Its current retail price is just under $90, but Moulder said he expects that to change over time once he increases the supply.
“It should be about a third of the cost once I get the manufacturing,” Moulder said.
In the meantime, Moulder will be prompting his product at a series of trade shows. He’s currently scheduled to attend sportsman shows in Eugene, Roseburg and Jackson County in February, and the O’Laughlin trade show in Redmond in early March.
For more information on the Bank-Ease Planer, visit www.moulder-llc.com.
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