Boys Toys – III (Reprise)

Pocket Pen Rod & Reel

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

It was on sale at CVS for a mere $10 – half the price of the previous one. It looked heftier, had replaced the baitcast reel with a larger spincast one. Out of the box, I had trouble testing/setting the drag and then things went downhill.

I tried a socket wrench to separate the drag wheel from the handle when it fell apart in my hands. Weeks of on-again/off-again trying to fix it, I finally managed to get it together and took it on a trip to Florida. The stupid thing can’t cast. Yes, at least the spool works, but getting the line to hit the water was near impossible. Even tried just a drop line from a pier. The one improvement is the gear ratio must have been turned up a notch, as I could reel it in with no problem – just couldn’t cast the damn thing.

At least it didn’t break like the last one – yet. It’s a $10 mantlepiece conversation starter at best.

Boys Toys - III

Pocket Pen Rod & Reel

I will start by saying the rod is broken. It snapped halfway along the rod. No idea how. That may be the good news, because it means more stuff I can throw out and simplify my tackle box.

For all the traveling I do, I thought this might be neat – or at least cute. After putting some braid on, I tried casting with it. Nothing happened. So it turns out one has to hand pull it out – just like a drop line, but not as convenient. Perhaps at a small “tourist” pier, with 6’ to the water.

But then looking at the reel and trying to reel line in, you can feel right away you will get carpal tunnel syndrome for the tiny amount of leverage you have on the reel. It is smaller than a spool of thread, maybe the diameter of a dime. This is way beyond ultra-lite.

So in the spirit of Mythbusters, I have to say this is a WoM – waste of money. It might have worked if they had chosen fibreglas and a spin reel, but this is really a toy.

For travel, the best I have found is a Rhino 4-piece rod that packs down to 22” and expands to 6 feet. I have an old $10 Shimano spin reel I use; so the whole thing cost me $5 more than this toy.

N.B. – I have looked on the web for the same Rhino rod I have and have NOT found it; instead there is a baitcast rod with a trigger grip. I bought mine last year at Dick’s Sporting Goods, but have not seen them since.

Probably a distant second would be the Pocket Fisherman, with which I was able to cast, but unfortunately, was unable to change the line without it no longer working ... actually, just could not get it back to together.

Not an Advertorial – I

I had hoped that this would be a rave on one of the unsung parts of fishing – the line. I was ready to say all kinds of good things about Spiderwire Stealth, the braid with the Teflon coating, how it can extend your cast by 10-15 feet.

Unfortunately, it has a severe problem, both with baitcast and spinning reels; it pinches on itself, to the extent that your great cast ends at your feet because of the line becoming wrapped on itself. Here I had been recommending, not only braid, but Stealth braid, and if it had been light enough, show you a photo of the worst birds nest I have ever had on a baitcast reel. Like Alexander, the only solution after 20-30 minutes of picking, was to cut the Gordian knot. Of, course, the one time I did not have a knife.

When it works, it is a beauty. I feel so confident with it, I will cast well past sundown, knowing it will go just as far as I want it to, with no trees to stop it. But like the little girl with the curl, when it locks, it is horrid.

So while it can work brilliantly on a bait cast, I balk at recommending it on anything other than spinning, if only because the damage is so much less. A line has to be in the water to call it fishing, not on the bank or in a tree while you pick and respool.

Yes, it is easy to knot (it is visible and soft), and can make some awesome casts, I won’t recommend it anymore to anyone but an experienced angler.

Boys Toys - II

Humminbird Smartcast RF-30

Any fisherman should be able to read the water, to recognize high probability fish holding areas. I am the most competent fisherman with the least talent I know. Everything I know I learned from Bill Dance and Roland Martin … TV shows. I rarely get skunked, but have no explanation for why or how something worked; I will never be a Kevin Van Dam, with his freight car of spinnerbaits and knowing everyone of them and which to use. But sometimes in bank fishing, I would like a bit more of an edge; I would like a fish finder.

And that has been the problem: a fish finder for people who do not spend time in boats. Now Humminbird has tackled the issue with a crankbait-sized, shock-green, submarine-shaped, sonar device that attaches to a swivel snap at the end of the line – just like a lure -- and a wrist watch receiver, with a one-inch LCD screen. Another irresistible idea for the Y-chromosome-challenged. Having received a bit of a windfall, I felt I could spring for the internet purchase at $50.

After a few false starts (returned twice for malfunctioning, a brand new but dead battery), I have been amused at the results. At first, I found it showed a number of false positives, fish where there were no fish. I know because I cast to the spot each time and didn’t catch any …

The transmitter cleverly includes another hole at the bottom to which one can attach a drop line, effectively letting the device act as a bobber as well.

Now, mid-May, it is spawn season, and blue gills and bass are very hard to entice to come out and play, but crappie and sunfish are available, as are the smaller (9-11”) bass. I let the little device that had been beeping non-stop over blue gill beds with nary a bite, just sit in one place, while I continued to fan cast with my fly rod. When the watch beeped and showed one fish – not the usual 3-5, I figured it was either a bass or a turtle – which the finder seems to confuse with fish. So I picked up the spinning rod and cast over the top of the bobber and sure enough, a 12” bass hit. I started to warm to the little device.

Two days later, I added a hook to the bobber end. I needed proof that what it was telling my watch was actually underneath it. The first day was a disaster, using a multi-hook leader that seemed to catch on everything except fish. The next day I added a gold Trout Magnet mealworm with just a nibble of Fishbites bloodworm surrogate. Now the curious thing was that fish would take the bait, but not show up as existing on the little screen. If the device showed one fish, I would guess it was either a turtle or bass, and pick up my baitcast rod; if a bunch of small fish, or the watch beeped incessantly, I would pick up the fly rod. Once it actually worked: I caught a small sunfish on the fly rod after the bobber indicated life below. The rest of the time, I caught all the other (half-dozen) large sunfish on the fish finder. A perverse turn on technology: yes, it was in fact, finding fish, but was telling me about it, by sinking below the surface – not beeping on the watch.

Will I continue to use it? Yes, after spawn, I will try it in all the usual places. The one drawback is that it requires a minimum of two feet to operate, and most of my bass, sunfish, and blue gills are in eighteen inches of water no more than eight feet from the bank, and I can see that far with my B.A.S.S. Polarized X-ray vision sunglasses. Stay tuned for another month …

Best little $50 bobber I ever bought!

It has been 2-3 days now that I have been using the Smartcast primarily as a bobber. I can’t say why it has been so successful – perhaps the sonar sounds like bait or the signal is affected by the curvature and magnetic field of the earth … I have now been catching more fish (ok, sunfish) with it than all my other rods combined (I travel with at least three).

July 23, 2007

Oh, no, not again …

Seems the sonar is on the fritz again. Sent it back and seemingly came back in worse shape than I sent it. Fourth time lucky? So far it seems to be working …

The spring was the most awesome bass fishing I have ever had, but then after almost two months of travel, absolutely nothing. Was doing better on the fly rod (ok, 6-8” bass). Talking it up with other fishermen, there does seem to be some drop offs, which I cannot see from the bank, but should be able to find with the bobber; so I began using it strictly as a depth finder. I hope it is right, because I see a steep decline, but no drop off, no thermocline, to speak of.

So I have gone back to fishing the banks, all of which are less than two feet deep. The returns to Humminbird have been annoying, but they have come back in a timely fashion, so I have to say the service is ok. For now, with the water levels so low, will put it aside and wait for September …