How Mountain Biking Can Solve Bank Fishing’s Most Persistent Problem

We weren’t supposed to be here. Not really. Not doing this. Dozens of other cyclists were flying by. Most of them had backpacks filled with water and energy bars. Our backpacks were filled with fishing rods.

[divider]A Perfect Problem[/divider]

[dropcap size=small]A[/dropcap] primordial haze held over the Arkansas River, casting an eerie hue over Pinnacle Mountain to the west. We straddled the river atop the crest of Big Dam Bridge and squinted towards the hazy peak in the distance. Between us and the lonely mountain stretched miles of landscape filled with perfect biking trails: some of them road, some of them dirt. That explained the bikers. Their trails scythed a course through pine forests, grasslands and mazes of sweet honey suckle bordering both banks of the Arkansas. Beyond those, the paved trails climbed up into the misty skyline as asphalt gave way to cascading lanes of dirt single-track.

This was a good place to ride.

In the swirling torrent some 90 feet below, a hydroelectric dam was busy churning the Arkansas’ natural power into city lights that, come nightfall, would flicker in the distance—the flickering lights of Little Rock.

As far as our eyes could see, the river below was filled with largemouth bass, catfish, drums and striped bass. That explained the fishing poles. But it also presented a problem—the low side of the dam harbored legendary striped bass and catfish, while the high side towards Pinnacle Mountain in the west was the closest epicenter for largemouth.

Fishing both sides of the river would normally require a lot of walking, as the dam’s lock is not open to recreational fishing boats.

The Solution

The solution to that problem came in a plan that competitive cyclist and outdoor writer Dena Woerner and I concocted weeks ago: we would meet on the Big Dam Bridge, scout the terrain and use our mountain bikes to find fish. Once we found them, we would haul them in using a small arsenal of portable fishing equipment. With bikes, we could quickly navigate from one side of the dam to the other—and we just might be able to access places that most bank fishermen wouldn’t bother hiking to. The plan seemed like the perfect combination of mountain biking and fishing.

We wanted to find a way to blend the two sports, and Little Rock was the perfect place to try. But would it work?

The Gear

It could work, we thought, if we had the right gear. Your typical mountain biking gear is not particularly well-suited to fishing; and likewise, most fishing gear doesn’t lend itself to hopping on a bicycle and riding for miles. What we needed was a way to blend equipment from both—something wearable enough to carry on a long bike ride, but designed to carry fishing tackle.

We found that equipment in the Wild River Nomad XP. I had heard about the Nomad XP before. In February, I found one at the Bassmaster Classic, and the sight of it planted seeds of our adventure in the back of my mind. This tackle box was something new. It was a backpack built from the ground up to be thrown around by an angler on the go, though Nomad doesn’t tout it exclusively for use on a bicycle. Still, with a solar-powered USB phone charger and plenty of room for travel rods, I had to give it a go. “This will either go really well, or really bad,” I thought.

And go it did. With juiced-up phones, water bottles and packs full of tackle and energy bars, Dena and I set a course down the bridge’s crest towards the mountain. We would try fishing upstream first, near the confluence of the Little Maumelle River and the Arkansas.

Hesitation left my mind as our bikes sped down the concrete surface of the bridge towards the water. We careened past a weary railway trestle and through the tall forests of pine on the Arkansas’ northern bank. Even loaded down with about 15 pounds of tackle, bicycle tools and camera gear the Nomad remained as comfortable as possible throughout our journey. Though, there’s no getting around it—the Nomad is a big pack, and I would recommend keeping your own pack lighter than I did. But as other riders sipped water from hydration packs on their back, I was getting excited about the fishing poles fitted to my own.

After all, who needs 3 liters of water when you can catch fish? Today, an old-school bottle would suffice.

Nearly five miles into our ride, Dena motioned towards a point. A handful of wooden posts and logs jutted up from the deep—this would be our first stop on the hunt for Arkansas River bass. We quickly chained the bikes to a sign post and broke out the rods.

Within minutes, we were fishing. But despite the presence of a large bait ball, the going was tough. Increasing afternoon boat traffic spooked the baitfish, and after about 30 minutes of fishing the point with no luck, we decided to utilize Plan B—head below the dam. This was partially an excuse to ride more of the beautiful Arkansas trails, but did have some sound fishing theory behind it. Dena had spent time working the Arkansas Big Bass Bonanza a day earlier, and had a solid scouting report on where to look.

Still, making an about-face towards the lower side of the river was no easy decision. Mountains are a perilous, irresistible calling to a rider—think something along the lines of the sirens’ call to Odysseus. And Pinnacle loomed nearby. But we weren’t here to ride the mountain, we were here to catch fish. Those fish, Dena said, were likely to be in a small lake on the lower side of the dam.

Thanks to the bikes, we made it to the other side of Big Dam Bridge and over to the oxbow in short order, interrupted only by a large box turtle who wandered in front of our path, and an even larger armadillo that casually wandered up to us on the way. Rumors of a rabid skunk in the vicinity made us leery of both. But as we arrived at the lake, we realized that our plan was working. We had already traveled about 10 miles on two wheels, and we were covering ground that would be impossible to make up on foot.

We also realized that our plan seemed a little crazy to some people.

“Y’all ride those bicycles in here?” asked one perplexed local near the lake. “What are you gonna do if you catch something?” he continued. By the time Dena shouted a short reply, “Take a picture and throw it back!” We knew that to prove the plan a success we had to land a fish. With daylight running in short supply, we needed to land one soon.

Suddenly, a splash. Followed by Dena hoisting a nice largemouth bass out of the oxbow. She had done it! The plan worked. The confused local fisherman wasn’t far away when she hoisted the bass high in the air for the money shot: a fresh largemouth bass, plucked from the water right beside a dusty mountain bike.

So there’s the proof—you can use a bicycle for fishing. It’s a tactic that makes perfect sense for people who are used to bank fishing and want to get around a little more, or for the cyclist who wonders what creatures lie beneath the waters along their favorite trail. Sometimes, in fishing, there are days when you get skunked. But what Dena and I discovered in Little Rock is that even on slow days, bringing a bike along can make your fishing trip more of an adventure. We covered a lot of ground, from rocky embankments to grasslands and lily-pad fields, to wading in the shadows of old docks. With a bike, the world of bank fishing was just a little more accessible.

And all you need to do it is the right equipment: a backpack sturdy enough to hold tackle trays, a bike with a water bottle holder, some collapsable fishing rods and a plan.