Don Mulligan Sr. fishes more efficiently with his old-fashioned cane pole.

Most fishermen do not own or have access to a boat. As a result, they spend all their time looking for the holy grail of shore fishing: a spot on the bank that is close to fish and hasn’t been beat to death.

It’s one of the toughest places to find in the world of open-water fishing, but there are ways to remedy the problem.

First, it helps to recognize the places and situations where shore fishermen can actually out-fish boat anglers.

Last week, my father and I fished a private lake that was full of big bluegills. We started out in a boat because we assumed it was the best way to attack the water.

After a couple hours of marginal success, we abandoned the boat and fished from shore. In half the time, we caught our self-imposed limit of 9 to 10-inch bluegills.

The bluegills were already on the beds in that particular lake (earlier than most lakes), and from the boat, we tried to sit just outside them in deeper water. It was a windy day, however, and most of our time was spent just keeping the boat in position and off the shallow beds.

From shore, we were able to creep along the bank and dip a slip bobber and night crawler over the top of the emerging cattails and into the beds without spooking anything.

We were also able to stay on one set of beds as long as we desired. The boat only gave us one shot at a bed, at best, as we continuously drifted with the wind.

Unfortunately, there are few situations where shore fishermen have the advantage over boat anglers. In most bodies of water, good shore fishing needs some assistance.

More docks, piers and close-in structure need to be constructed for shore fishermen. This simply hasn’t happened in Indiana.

There are fishing piers on a handful of lakes, but they don’t come close to filling the demand. Even where they do exist, more should be done around them to help the shore fishermen who rely on them.

Consider the Michigan City Pier on Lake Michigan. It is one of only a couple places where shore fishermen can access our great lake, and the millions of fish stocked in it by everyone’s tax dollars.

Though boat fishermen have access to countless miles of water the shore anglers cannot fish, boats routinely cruise along the breakwalls of the Michigan City Pier, competing for space with the folks standing on the pier.

This scene is repeated on other breakwalls and rock outcroppings all along Indiana’s Lake Michigan coastline.

Why not create a 100-yard no-boat zone around all shore fishing spots on Lake Michigan? For that matter, why not create the same sort of buffer zone around all public fishing docks on all lakes?

It would be a good start in leveling the playing field for shore fishermen, but I would take it even a step further.

Why not dedicate money to build reefs and permanent structures in close proximity to the shore, and in the no-boat zone?

Private lake owners create reefs all the time with great success. They concentrate fish in spots that are accessible to anyone with a casting rod.

The last thing that would help shore fishermen get their fair share of the fish they help pay to stock and maintain would be to designate entire bodies of water for their use exclusively.

I would even take it one final step and create lakes where only anglers under the age of 16 could fish, and only from shore (with a licensed adult for safety). These lakes could be heavily stocked to maximize the experience, and managed for big fish through regulations.

Money to stock the designated lakes should come, at least in part, from all the money Indiana spends on stocking salmon and trout in Lake Michigan. 

With few places set-aside just for shore fishermen on the big lake, all the money and stockings there have been on behalf of big boat owners and commercial charter captains for decades.

Few could argue it’s the not majority’s turn to benefit from some of that money.