This blog Bank Fishing Tips – Fish Don’t Have Eyelids, was taken from the monologue of a video produced by Joel P, from his YouTube series, Keeping KastKing Lit With Joel. You can see the KastKing bank fishing tips video below.

You know starting out fishing, you know we’ve seen an influx of new anglers and the reason why I’m just kind of checking out a little spot here that I didn’t notice before. The reason why is COVID. I mean COVID has kind of changed a lot of things and what better way to social distance than bank fishing, and you know that’s kind of what this is all about is bank fishing.

Yeah bank fishing. You know we all started out bank fishing.

You know I did growing up. I didn’t, have a boat or access to a boat, so that’s how I started bank fishing. Bank fishing is so much fun. You get out, you get a walk, you know sometimes some of the places you know.

If you have little ponds, you can’t quite access. You can’t drive through to them. You know so you just walk to them. You know gives out, see nature and everything you can do it from a boat too, but hey that’s what bank fishing is all about. You know, you get to beat the bushes so to speak. So you know I am a tackle junkie like I love fishing tackle and I always have a lot of it at home. You know, and there’s times, where I take a lot of it with me out too.

But, you know when I bank fish, sometimes depending on the time of  year, kind of dictates what I take with me. Sometimes I have crankbaits, jerk baits, jigs, I mean it. Just all depends. I am  going to show you guys you can do this with very little equipment.

I mean, you do not have to take out a whole bunch of stuff. When you go out bank fishing, just got to take out a little bit of stuff. So hopefully this pond, I haven’t been here since this fall. But, right now it looks like it’s, pretty overgrown with cattails all around, so I got to try to find a spot where I can get into and secondly, like I said, you know, got to watch for rattlesnakes.

There might be some out here. You know I  just do not  want to be the guy that finds them. So let’s go find this pond and I will, get back to you guys. All right, so I made it to my spot and one of the things that I know a lot of people have a hard time with, especially just starting out that you’re going to have to learn, is choosing the right rod selections for when you’re out bank fishing, and one of the reasons is, you do not want to have to carry seven or eight different rods with you generally.

Two rods is what I usually carry. If  I am going to go out bank fishing – and you know one – I will choose a medium heavy casting rod and generally I will go with a medium light action, or medium action, even a spinning rod, because a lot of the techniques, like weightless techniques, this medium light to light action, spinning rod I will be able to throw this on a spinning setup.

That’s for like a lot of my weightless applications and even if I want to do a, Ned Rig, or a drop shot, I can do that with this rod. So, yes, these are my fishing rod selections. Something casting rod medium heavy you don’t have to use a casting rod.

If you’re not familiar with using a bait casting equipment, you can go with even a spinning rod. You know medium heavy spinning, rod and kind of achieve the same thing. I just prefer using a casting rod so that’s what I use, and the other thing like I said, is use a medium. I use a medium light to light action. Just a little bit, depending on the situation, spinning rod and the reason spinning setup and the reason why I do that is for a lot of my weightless presentations, you know and even like a weightless fluke or a weightless Neko Rig

Anything like that I can use the medium light and I can also drop shot on this rod if I choose, so when it comes to tackle you know there is, I said I am a tackle junkie, and, I have a lot of tackle so bank fishing, you really don’t need a lot of tackle. You know, I guess you can take how much ever you want, but I can fit what I need in my little backpack and I’ll show you guys that here in a minute. But you know, for right now, since it’s summer. I don’t know if this can be considered dog days of summer, but you can see me try to hold that up where you guys can see it my little tackle box. Hopefully I don’t drop stuff out of it, but you can see.

I’ll put the camera around here all right, so you can see in my tackle box kind of what all I have in there. I mean I don’t have a whole bunch of stuff. You know I have got some worm hooks there, some a couple of jigs in there, and some tubes right there.

You know weights, swivels, drop shot weights, whatever, bobber stops. Bobber stops are important for Texas rigging and Carolina rigging. I got some shaky heads in there. You know definitely need the bands for doing like a Wacky Rig, or you know, if I want to, I use the rubber bands instead of going directly into the soft plastic. So, they last a little bit longer. I also have some spinner baits, which probably won’t be using today, swim bait right in there Ned Head, just some regular jig heads right there, and I also have crankbaits.

I love crankbaits, so you don’t need to take a lot with you when I am out pond fishing, you know bank fishing.

But if you look just beyond these weeds in there, you can see a little bit of cover there and then right in front of me even here, so you have weeds that are growing up, and you know now the sun’s, going behind the clouds, what usually happens is when it’s sunny, fish don’t have eyelids, so they tend to hide out and that kind of stuff. You know when it’s, really really sunny. So, all I’ve been doing is casting kind of out past it with the Texas Rig that I am using.  Let’s, see if I can get it down here, so you guys can see it and now the wind’s picking up, but you can see. Let’s get over here. So we can walk, and look here so now the wind’s picking up so you can see here that I do have a Texas Rig, and I do have a bobber stop on it right here, but it is not pegged.

I do not have my weight pegged. So, what that is allowing me to do is by that not being pegged, the weight will fall down. You know slide down, go down first, and the worm will kind of slowly start falling, and what I also like doing whenever I Texas Rig, is I always like putting kind of a stopper or a bead down towards the bottom, and the reason I do that is so my weight is not constantly banging on that knot, weakening my knot. So I have always done that you know. Even when I catfish I do it. As I said just so that weight’s not banging on that knot and weakening that knot out,

 I hope you had fun today on the adventure – you know – bank fishing – for you, new anglers, do not give up, and I will tell you straight from the heart, the struggle is real, that is, why they call it fishing and not catching. You know so always remember fish like cover some days more than others. Sunny days fish don’t have eyelids, so they’re, going to be looking for shade.

You know they’re, probably be down a little bit deeper water hiding out. So, you got to find them. You got to be able to adjust when you’re out fishing and, just don’t give up. Just keep trying.

You know you’ll catch them. Some days you’re, going to catch them. Some days you’re, not, but every day you go on the water, make sure you learn something you know pick something up; that’s kind of what I do, because you’re, never too old to learn – and I’m not really that old!