The day my son was born, I used it as an excuse to buy a new fishing rod. I could imagine in five or six years, I’d have it well broken-in and he’d be standing on the back deck reeling in a coho or two with it. That “dream” did come true.
When my first grandchild was born, I bought her a child’s model, Zebco spincaster. Fishing off a boat dock, Anna reeled in her first bluegill with it when she was just 2 ½ years old. She now has a little brother, but I hadn’t yet bought anything “fishy’ for him when I spotted a NextGen 4/0 Medium Tackle Box made by Flambeau Outdoors. Bingo!
Andrew is way too little to fill the box with hooks, bobbers and other fishing gear, but I knew he’d be attracted to the bright blue color of the box, the bright yellow handle and closure knob and have fun opening and closing the top and swinging out the drawers to fill them with other bright plastic toys. I was right about that.
In a couple years we’ll add a few panfish hooks, some red and white bobbers and other panfish tools then head down to the dock. In the meantime, I’ll work on teaching him words like “tackle, reel, bobber and “here fishy, fishy.” That’s one of the jobs grampas are supposed to do.
Toddlers are going to play with some sort of toys, they might as well be fishing oriented toys. One of the jobs Flambeau Outdoors has taken on is to supply products designed to capture the attention of the next generation of anglers. Check out their NexGen Tackle Boxes, Wild Bite Adventure Kits and the Big Mouth Tackle Box Kits at: http://www.flambeauoutdoors.com. All Flambeau products are available at this website, as well as at hundreds of online sources, retailers and big-box stores. (Flambeau makes products for “big” kids and grampas, too.)
What fisherman doesn’t like getting a fishing related gift for Christmas or other occasion? I do, but my wife and daughter know better than to just wander into a tackle shop or click around the interweb and buy something that they think I would like, need or enjoy. (I probably already have it or don’t need it.) So, I make not-so-subtle “hints” about the “Tackle and Toys” that would brighten my Christmas, birthday or anniversary to help them out. One of the hints I made for my birthday a few months ago, paid off both for me and for my wife – the Inshore Essentials Tool Kit from Toadfish.
The kit includes a “boca grip” style fish gripper, a pair of braid scissors and a pair of long-nose pliers (along with a retractable cord and a lanyard.) “Whoopie do,” you might think, but one feature stands out from the “gifter’s” point of view- they come packed in a stylish case, virtually useless on the boat, but handsome to behold – that scores points for both my wife and daughter. Inside the case, the tools look terrific, as well; sort of like the sausage sticks and foil wrapped cheese in a gift box from Hickory Farms look better than similar items at a food store. The contrasting blackened steel or aluminum frames set off with contrasting stainless steel rivets and hinge-pins give them a “cultured” appearance and the signature, “Toadfish-teal” grips on the pliers and scissor makes them look even better.
More important to me is: “Do they work?” I don’t give a whit if the pliers, cutters or other tools on my boat look good. If they work good, I love ‘em. If they “look good” I just love ‘em more. These tools were designed to work, then appointed to make them handsome. The pliers fit my hand, open and close with zero slop, have a spring-loaded action, important when using them with wet or “fish-slimed” hands. The jaws taper to grip onto perch-sized hooks and are strong enough to dislodge a 2/0 treble from still quivering king salmon. Add a bottle opener and carbide line cutter and it’s a winner.
Most fish grippers are long, heavy tools. The one in the Toadfish kit is petite, in comparison, lightweight and with folding handles allowing them to be stowed in your pocket or in a hand-tool rack if you prefer. Don’t let the small size fool you. The largest size fish I’ve lifted with them so far was a still-struggling 20-pound laker. I love them for walleyes, however, since I can hold the fish easily but the diminutive size doesn’t get in the way of unhooking the trebles even if they have been sucked in way back in the fish’s mouth.
The line cutter clips both mono and braid perfectly. ‘Nuff said, other than the built in carabiner makes it handy for storage whether on a belt loop or other location.
Many big box sporting goods retailers produce any number of products with their own label on them. They don’t manufacture the gear – Bass Pro, Dicks Sporting Goods, Sheels and other major retailers including FishUSA don’t own factories. Instead, they contract with companies that do have manufacturing facilities, perhaps Shimano, Daiwa or others to build rods, reels, lures, and dozens of other products for them and then adorn them with the FishUSA or other company’s label.
Don’t expect these private labels to be identical with the name brand models, but that doesn’t mean they are inferior. In many cases they are made to exacting specifications and (at least to most anglers) they perform similarly to the brands from well-known manufacturers. In general, however, they don’t carry the price demanded by the well-known equipment makers. That’s important to value-minded anglers, whether they are newcomers and can’t afford to invest in multiple set-ups all at once or for seasoned charter captains who are often putting their gear in the hands of rank amateurs prone to abusing tackle just due to unfamiliarity with handling any sort of gear.
I was pleasantly surprised by the Flagship Trolling Rod I got from FishUSA in late summer in every aspect. It looks good and performs great. The 802M model I tested has a pleasing metallic steel-blue finish – not so flashy that it looks out of place among the other rods in my array; but even if it was some gaudy color, I’d still like it for how it feels in my hands and how it performs both when I’m trolling or when it’s being bent by a Great Lakes fish.
In hand, its graphite composite blank is noticeably lighter than many of the “well-seasoned” major brands I use daily and the triangular shaped foregrip gives it a firm feel, comfortable in my hands and I’m sure it will be easier to grip for novice customers to handle. The 802M is eight feet long, two-piece construction for easy storage and is rated for 10-to-20-pound line. It will fit well with the rods I use when trolling for cohos on Lake Michigan or walleyes on Lake Erie using planer boards. It would work well with a downrigger for these species, but if I planned to use it when targeting kings, steelhead or lakers, I’d select one of the medium-heavy Flagship versions offered by FishUSA with a bit more backbone.
If you are looking for a mid-priced rod with top-level looks, quality and performance, look no further than the Flagship trolling rods from FishUSA. See them all at http://www.fishusa.com.
You are out fishing with your regular crew, one of which just finished unhooking a walleye that hit one of the planer board lines, or you are trolling on Lake Ontario and your fishing partner just unhooked a king salmon that fell for a lure pulled deep with a Dipsey Diver – or perhaps it’s you and a friend on Lake Superior and the fish being unhooked is a laker that fell for a downrigged lure. Regardless of the place or the fish, soon the familiar question will be heard: How deep was the line set? How far out did you have this Dipsey? How far back was this Flicker Shad?
Ah…. I think I had it out…. How far is the diver on the other side…? More likely, “I can’t remember.”
How far? How deep? How much line? All are important questions; and the wrong answer can be the difference in whether that lure or that line is a one-hit-wonder or the hero for the day.
I’m sure there are “set-up savants” that can remember every lure and every deployment. I was once on a boat where the captain kept an Excel spreadsheet on an iPad showing every lure, every depth, every fish, probably the wind speed and color of each angler’s underwear. That’s not me and it wasn’t a couple of Michigan fishing buddies who were always asking these questions whether they were out for Saginaw Bay walleyes or trolling for Lake Huron salmon.
But instead of just asking this question over and again, they used their non-fishing talents to invent and produce the Dial Back Precision Trolling Device, or what I call the Dial Back Memory Enhancer. There are two styles, depending on how your boat is set up or how you fish. Both have a small, plastic body with three numbered dials which rotate from zero to nine. Have a Dipsey Diver set at 93 feet, set the dials on the memory enhancer to show 093.
The original style is best for boats that always have the same rod in the same rod holder. The device attaches to the rod holder. If you always put the starboard downrigger in a specific rod holder, that’s where to put the Dial Back. Set the lure 88 feet deep, set the rod in the holder, set the dials on the Dial Back to 0-8-8.
The Dial Back “mini” is for guys who rotate their rods, a common tactic for those who use Big Board Planers with the fishing lines attached to releases that slide down a tether cord. After a fish is caught on the rod and reel in rod holder #1, the rod in the #2 holder gets moved to the #1 position, the #3 moves to #2, etc. The lure that caught the fish gets positioned to rod holder for the lure trolled closest to the boat.
Dial Back Minis attach to the rod or reel in any position that works for you. Attach it to the reel, to the rod, to the first line guide – where doesn’t matter, the process is the same. Catch a fish. Rotate the other rods, check the Dial Back on the set-up that just caught the fish and put the lure exactly as far as it was previously.
These are products EVERY trolling boat should have and every troller can afford! The Mini’s are available in black, the originals in a variety of colors so you can color-code your rod holders. “Fish on yellow!” Check them out and purchase them at www.dialbackprecisiontrolling.com.
Whether it’s perch fishing at this time of the year, crappie fishing through the winter months, walleyes in the spring or when or where hungry fish are found, the best bait many times is fresh minnows. Why not? The first rule of the lake is “big fish eat little fish” so minnows are a top choice.
Sure, there’s something to be said about duping a fish with some sort of lure or artificial creation that is usually designed to look like a minnow. Some of them are supposed to smell like a minnow or swim like a minnow or wink it’s eye like a minnow – but real minnows do all this automatically.
Just stop by a bait shop on the way to the lake and pick up a couple dozen, better make that three or four dozen. It’s not that you are going to catch that many perch or crappies, it’s that minnow buckets are notoriously hard on live minnows. By the time you get the boat in the lake, it’s likely to find a floater or two in the container. By the time you are fishing for the last few fish needed to make your limit, you may be hoping to hook that last keeper before the minnows are gone. I’ve been there.
So was Mathew Davis, owner of Whisker Seeker Tackle – a company with a large collection of tackle designed to meet the needs of catfish anglers. What? Catfish in the Great Lakes? Sure there are, but my guess is far more are caught incidentally than on purpose.
Yes, catfish anglers do fish with minnows, as well as relying on a variety of other baits, including chicken livers, nightcrawlers. Many of the largest cats become predators as they grow and they eagerly chase down shad, panfish, skipjack and other species. You didn’t think big catfish got big by eating chicken livers or night crawlers, did you?
These big baits for those fishing for big cats are even harder than shiners or fathead minnows to keep healthy in a minnow bucket. That’s why Davis went to work on his ultimate bait container, the Bait Shack.
Two things cause “bucket death” to baitfish of any species. Oxygen depletion and (at least in the summer months) and excessive heat cause as many minnow deaths as fish hooks and perch, some days.
Keeping the minnows cool is simple enough, put the minnows in a cooler and keep the lid shut. The better the cooler, the easier it is to beat the heat. So Davis started with the best – one of those roto-molded, heavy-duty brutes designed to keep products chilled for days, not hours. That’s what Davis started with when designing his Bait Shack, but to deliver a steady supply of life-giving oxygen, he incorporated heavy-duty aeration pumps built into the cooler’s lid and powered them with a long-lasting, rechargeable lithium battery. Don’t need that much power – use it to plug in or recharge your phone.
The coolest thing is the Bait Shack is solar powered. A solar collector on the outside of the lid keeps the battery charged all day (and all night) – and then all day the next day. Don’t worry about changing batteries or plugging it in. If it’s parked where photons from the sun (or a lightbulb) will strike the solar charger, they charge the battery, keeping it in the game. Stick the unit in a closet or your trunk, the battery will stay charged for up to 10 days before the three bubbler tubes cease bubbling. Done with it? Drain it through a convenient drain plug near the bottom on the side.
This is a brand-new product, unveiled at last summer’s ICAST (2025) where it won the “Best Fishing Accessory” award in the New Products Showcase. Currently, available at www.whiskerseeker.com, it will be showing up at retailers and online outlets across the country and on the internet very soon.
Leave it to Shimano to come up with a new line of fishing rods designed specifically for the salmon/steelhead/sturgeon anglers. Why? Thousands of Great Lake anglers rely on (and swear by) their Talora trolling rods and wouldn’t trade them for anything.
When I picked up the new Technium Trolling Rod at the recent ICAST show I checked twice to see if the rod was in the wrong slot. It felt more like one of the latest carbon fiber rods than one of the Talora rods I’m used to handling. Actually, according to the Shimano rep I grabbed to explain the difference, there is a good “dose” of carbon fiber in these new rods as well as a Talora “legacy.” I don’t like to dive too deep in engineering in my reviews so let’s just leave it at the various models of Technium Rods are made from a fusion of the TC4 fiberglass (featured in the Talora line) and carbon fiber to make the rods lighter and slimmer than any salmon trolling rod I’d ever held – even the 9-footer moderate action rod I put to use as a braided-line diver rod.
Even if you mix your rod choices, the Technium will be a standout. Instead of the basic black rod blank, they’ve managed to imbue each rod with a holographic sort of blue sparkle reminiscent of waves or perhaps lightning. Pretty darned cool looking!
I used my 9-footer with a #1 (Medium) size Dipsey both with and without the ring. The bend in the rod at salmon trolling speeds was perfect. Most of the bend was concentrated in the top third of the rod when trolling, leaving plenty of backbone in the middle section to make the diver snap open at the strike of a fish and hold up to a tight drag when a big king or steelhead is latched on down below. That mid-rod strength also helped when the fish were pulled close to the stern, giving enough muscle to both steer the fish (as much as is possible) and keep the head of the fish up while it was pulled those last few feet in range of the landing net.
I wasn’t sure about the carbon fiber handle on the trolling model Techniums, but in use, I learned to love them. I didn’t have to “assist” many of my customers, helping them pull the rods out of the holders when a big fish was on the end of the line. The handle is hard and slick and will slip out of the rod holder with a minimum amount of effort. The reel seat tightens on the reel nicely and it has a second tightening “nut” on it that keeps the reel seat from loosening. Cool!
Speaking of reels, I paired the rod with a Shimano 600 Tekota A, line-counter reel to make a sweet combo able to handle the biggest fish in the lake with the sensitivity to have fun when pulling up cohos and “prince” salmon, those feeder-kings still a year or more from their potential size. I use 30-pound test Power Pro on my braid diver reels and the rod’s sensitivity shows when something is “goofy” down below – like having a shaker on the line or if the dodger or flasher isn’t rotating properly.
I don’t expect charter captains or avid recreational Great Lakes anglers to toss their Taloras overboard and switch to the Technium sticks, but when it comes time to get a new rod for one reason or another, take a look at the Technium Rods at https://fish.shimano.com/landing and buy them where ever Shimano rods and reels are sold.
When the guys at RLVNT Sunglasses sent me a pair of sunglasses to try, they slipped in a couple of spoons they thought I’d like to use. This line of tackle is ever-expanding but what they’ve done (and are doing ) is use the light-bending properties of the films and coatings they use in their lenses and apply them to their lures.
Depending on how much and at what angle the light strikes the finish on these lures, the color of the reflected light changes. You see it and the fish see it. So instead of seeing a traditional paint job which only varies whether the lure is in direct sunlight or shade, or a metallic finish that just reflects when sunbeams hit it, the lure changes color continuously.
The one I used shimmered from dark purple to pink to bright blue and regularly caught the attention of passing cohos. I loaned it to a friend to take to Lake Nipigon and he crushed the lake trout using it. Other films produce other hues and excel in conditions from stained or off-colored water to crystal clear. (And don’t think their casting spoon is only for casting. It trolls perfectly with a loose wobble.)
The Mad Scientist lives in Minnesota – often called Walleye-sota – and firmly in the winter ice-belt. They produce a bevy of lures (all with their proprietary finishes) suitable for panfish or pike (salmon or trout) wherever they swim. Made in America, sold online at www.madscientist.technology, in retail stores and other online outlets.
Many marinas or boat access sites don’t have fish cleaning facilities but many anglers want to clean their catch before heading home. If that’s you or that’s the place you launch, Toadfish’s Stowaway Filet System can save the day.
Toadfish, a company with an eclectic assortment of outdoor products, has produced a folding cutting board – the large size is 14X22 inches when it’s opened flat and it rolls up to the size of a 22-inch-long two-by-four (1.5 X 3.5 inches). Made of four hinged slats made from dishwasher safe high-density polyethylene, it has stainless steel hinges and built in magnets to hold it shut when not in use. When rolled open the bottom side has anti-skid material to keep if from sliding around when in use. One edge has a two-stage (carbide + ceramic) knife sharpener to keep your fillet knife razor sharp.
The cutting board is a great product on its own, but I’ve been wanting to get a quality folding fillet knife to add to my collection. That’s why I chose the Toadfish “system” that includes a high-quality folding fillet knife as well as tough neoprene sheath that contains the folded cutting board and features a snug pocket on the outside to hold the folded-up knife. I tested the extra-large size kit that matches the 22” board with the 8.5” knife.
Sadly, I’ve been in several fish cleaning stations that were just plain disgusting. Even in the nice ones, how well do you think the cutting boards or the surfaces designed to be used for cutting fish have been sanitized? Most get a quick squirt of a hose to remove obvious blood and gore, but what about the germs and bacteria festering there?
I’m not a germaphobe; but still, I always bring my own cutting board along that I know is clean and relatively germ free. Even in my pick-up, the compact size is welcome and ready to use.
Check out this and other Toadfish products at www.toadfish.com. Purchase them there, at some retailers and at numerous online sellers including Amazon.
There are very few heated fish cleaning stations at marinas or access sites around the Great Lakes. Many marinas and access sites don’t even have a dedicated facility to clean fish.
My fishing season starts long before the cleaning station is open and I’ve seen and used plenty of innovative ways to clean the fish I catch before heading home. Over the winter I got a new one – a tailgate sized cutting board.
I’ve used the tailgate of my pick-up as a work bench many times and as a fish cleaning station a few times. It’s the perfect height, but the downside of using it as a fish cleaning location is the clean-up. Even when laying the largest sized cutting board I owned on the tailgate, there was always some blood or other, slimy fishy-stuff that drips off the board onto the tailgate.
Sure, that can be cleaned up, but doing so without spraying or sloshing water into the truck bed or onto the gear stowed in the bed is tedious. That’s why, when I saw the tailgate sized cutting board from North Lake Outdoors, I realized this two-foot by four-foot cutting board was the perfect answer.
When my fishing partner and I were back at the dock with our limit of cohos (including a bonus brown trout) in early March we lined up our fish on the board for a hero shot and then I went to work. By positioning the board with an inch or so overhanging the open tailgate the blood and slime just dripped off onto the asphalt. When finished, I leaned the board against the open tailgate, dipped a bucket of water from the lake and cleaned the blood, slime and scales off the cutting board, gave it a final rinse with bleach-water I’d brought from home and stowed it in the back of the truck for the next trip.
North Lake makes a slightly smaller 48” X 19” model and a “miniature” 16” X 32” board – all made in America, all made from food-grade polyethylene. Check them out and order one for yourself at www.northlakeoutdoors.com.
Long ago, every fishing line company jumped into the race to produce their own version of braided line. Some of it was very good, some was very poor and history is littered with examples of both. One of the first brands to surge to the forefront was a brand called Power Pro. It’s early version dates back to 1997 and surged to the forefront in the fishing world.
For a while Power Pro was like Kleenex, in that when you ask someone for a Kleenex, you may get a Puffs, Ultra Soft or some other brand. Anglers often just called the braided line on their reel as Power Pro, even though it may have really been spooled with SpiderWire, Sufix or some other brand.
Most of the major line companies now offer several different versions of braided line, sometimes just to offer something new, but usually it’s to provide options that are created for special fishing conditions. Power Pro is no different; now offering versions designed for various conditions and in a variety of colors.
When I was respooling my reels with braided line this spring, when I got to the Shimano Tekota A that I use as my “braid” dipsey I immediately thought of the Power Pro Super Slick V2 I’d spotted at the ICAST show last summer. (Shimano has been making Power Pro since 2008 when they acquired the company that developed it originally.) This is the line that won the prestigious “Best New Product” award at the show.
I’ve been using braid on some of my diver set-ups for decades. Braided line is super thin and super strong and it has zero stretch. I can trip a diver (and so can a fish) whether there’s 20 feet of line between the rod tip and diver or 200 feet.
The Super Slick V2 is the smoothest (slick) eight-strand braided line I’ve found, so besides being thinner than most, the line passes through the water with less drag. I use 30-pound braid for diver trolling and I’m confident I’ll be getting the maximum depth with the minimum amount of line when using this Power Pro line.
Of course the color of the line makes no difference to the fish, but I like an easy-to-see line on my diver set-ups and the Marine Blue color fills that order quite nicely. Power Pro lines are available in a variety of spool sizes, colors and other options at retailers and online sources. Check them all out at www.powerpro.com
FISHING TOYS 