Bank Sitting

    Bank sitting, or shore fishing, or bottom fishing or whatever you choose to call it, is a type of angling which doesn’t get a whole lot of ink. But I think a lot of fishermen—even those of us who own boats—will admit to doing as much of it as anything else. Sometimes you’re just not in the mood to deal with jet skis and cigarette boats, or, in the worst-case scenario, to endure long waits at the launch only to watch the person in front of you spend a half-hour at the ramp doing the things he should have taken care of at home.
    I’m no stranger to technology—even though I’m one of a dwindling minority of fishermen who own a boat not equipped with a fish finder. (I was strangely proud of that for a while, but now I’m going to buy one. The lake near my home has a big suspended panfish bite in the late summer months, and I’d rather catch fish than feel superior.) I own more tackle than is probably necessary, and every winter I page through the Bass Pro Shops Master Catalog lusting over specialty rods and reels to augment the specialty rods and reels I already own. But one of the charms of bank sitting is that most any combo you have will do. And as far as technique goes, there’s no buzzin’, no burnin’, no crankin’… and no scented, flavored baits which could double as snacks (unless you count the dip bait I use for catfish, which is thoughtfully labeled, “Not for Human Consumption.”) None of this is an attack on anyone’s favorite technique, though—I have my own, too. I probably have a jig tied to the end of my line at least 50 percent of the time, for just about every species except largemouth bass. (For bass, I like twitching minnow imitations on top, even during periods when I should be doing something else. I like it so much that I even use the tactic in winter. I cast to my favorite emergent structure until eventually the owner emerges, alright, enraged, and I have to move on to the next ice shanty.)
 
   My own favorite shore-fishing spot is along a small southern Wisconsin stream. The stream is studded with logjams, which make for good fishing, is home to mink and muskrats and ducks, and is pretty enough, though it will never be featured on any angling calendar. In spring, floods cause all sorts of trash—soda bottles, Styrofoam cups, and the like—to accumulate at the logjams and in the current eddies. My wife and I pick up all the trash we can, but what’s left doesn’t bother us too much. The creek doesn’t aspire to be anything more than what it is, and a resort will never be built upon its banks.

    When I’m out in my boat or wade fishing, I usually concentrate on a specific species. But the target of bank sitting—and I doubt I’m alone in this—is usually of the “whatever bites” variety. Sure, I tell myself that I’m fishing for channel cats, or walleyes and saugers, but the reality is that I catch as many carp as anything else—which is okay, as a tug on the line is a tug on the line as far as I’m concerned, and no fish fights harder than the carp. I catch freshwater drum (“sheepshead,” we call them in Wisconsin) too, and here I’m reminded of the old adage that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. I once tried a recipe which touted drum fillets as “the best fried fish you’ve ever tasted”—a tall order in a state where a double order of “lake perch” is gastronomic heaven, or at least was until Lake Michigan’s yellow perch population collapsed. (Now their appearance on supper club menus is often followed by two of the ugliest words in the English language:  “Market Price.”) But those drum fillets were, if not outstanding, pretty darned good, and I’ve tried a few times since to duplicate the results. My wife and I recently tried a different recipe for drum, which advertised the result as being absolutely delectable. I suppose it was, if not delectable, at least edible, in the sense that our bodies must have absorbed some nutriments, and in the sense that we didn’t die. There we go again:  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
 
   While bank sitting on a little stream or gravel pit can yield fillets for the pan, it can also yield experiences not to be found by roaring around in a boat on more storied waters. A friend and I were at my favorite shore site a few summers ago, soaking dip bait worms for channel catfish. A solid bite on one of our rods resulted in a large snapping turtle, which we promptly released.
    
    And released.
    And released again.

    At this point, with the snapper trailing three dip bait worms from its jaws, we decided to move the turtle—with the aid of a landing net—to a point well upstream. I’m sure that, like a homing pigeon, the turtle was headed for another taste of Sonny’s Super Sticky Channel Cat Bait when we finally packed up our gear and left.
   
  On another occasion the same friend and I were again fishing for channel cats, at a different location along the same creek. As night was falling, I caught a nice cat, put it on my stringer, and turned to light my lantern. When I turned back, one of my rods was in the creek and heading rapidly northward, with just the tip visible bobbing above the black water. I jumped in after the rod, with my friend registering amusement from the opposite bank. I slogged through mud and water and weeds, until finally I caught up with it and pulled a 25-inch cat to hand from the log jam where it had hidden. I waded back to shore and strung the fish next to its cousin.
 
   At the end of the night that particular fish was gone. It had wrecked a link on the chain-type stringer.
 
   I didn’t begrudge that cat its fillets, however. After all of the trauma that fish had been through, I figured its escape was just poetic justice.

    Most of my bank sitting outings are not that eventful, of course. Sometimes I don’t catch much—or anything—and sit quietly contemplating in front of a set of unmoving rod tips. The opportunity to sit and think, in fact, is something which bank sitting offers in abundance, and which I take advantage of a lot. Which is not to say that I’m an angling Zen-master, though, perched upon some sort of piscatorial mountaintop dispensing cryptic words of wisdom to seekers from below. Becoming one with my environment is sometimes trickier than I’d like to admit.
  
  One day this spring I headed to a network of lagoons by a large lake just a couple of blocks from my home. I was harried after a busy day at work, and what I was contemplating was not fishing but the lengthy “to-do” list which sat upon my desk. When I arrived at the spot, I found that its only other occupant was an elderly woman, who wore a large straw hat and perched like a kingfisher on the edge of a lawn chair.
 
   I was worried about my list, and when I got a bite I was too antsy and missed the fish. As for the woman, I don’t know if she was thinking about much of anything, but every once in a while she’d reach down, pluck a pole up off of the grass, and hoist a bullhead or crappie flopping up onto the bank. In the space of an hour she outfished me—me!—about ten to zero. Disgusted, I packed up and headed home. Once there, I discovered that what I had to do wasn’t really all that important anyway, and I wished I was back at the lagoon. But that’s the way of things.
 
   I’ll get it down, though. At least a couple of days this summer will find me forsaking the boat and the waders and sitting on a bank somewhere, lulled into calm by sun and current and the smell of lush vegetation. I’ll heave baits out into the water, reel the lines taut, and sit and wait. If I’m lucky, a rod tip will lunge and I’ll hook a fish, and then there’ll be a job for the net. And that’s what it’s all about, no matter which method of fishing you choose.