Things I Just Don't Understand....

Things I just don't understand....

     This week's blog is going to be slightly less informative, and slightly more of a rant.  You might just get some entertainment out of it, or you might just get offended.  If you enjoy it, good for you.  If you get offended, please understand that these are things that I just don't get.  Maybe I don't know enough about them to understand myself, or maybe they're just plain stupid.  I don't know.  Please let me know in the comments if you think I'm a jerk and let me know why.  But until then, here are seven things I just don't understand about the fishing industry:

People who sell used gear at 90+% the retail price.

     Look man, I don't care if your "like new" Revo STX still has the original box.  You know what it doesn't have that a new one does?  A receipt, a large retail store backing their products, and a guy standing behind the counter that will be there during business hours that I can go and complain to, safely, if something were to go wrong with it.  So no.  I'm not going to give you $180 dollars for your used Revo, original box or not.  Not when for $20 more I can walk in to one of 15 shops in the area that carries them.  

     Oh yeah, and it's got a full spool of year-old fluorocarbon, so let's add $30 for that because we both know you aren't just going to replace it with the line you always use anyway.

Girls who post (and guys who look at) pictures of them in a skanky bikini while fishing.

     Alright, here it is, just take it... (I hand you my man card).

     Seriously though.  This is dumb.  Those girls you see in what ever kinds of pictures they appear in are models, not anglers.  They are selling themselves short by investing their lives in the body that they will only have for a few more years, and you're selling out by looking at them and buying whatever they want you to buy.  I can't believe it's 2016 and we still market crap this way...

VLOGS

     I know that vlogs aren't just a fishing industry thing, but it seems to me that all of the once respected YouTubers that put out quality videos either teaching how to fish, or just showing some great catches on video suddenly feel the need to walk around with their cameras 24/7 showing us their daily lives, washing the car, eating lunch, or just driving around town running errands.

     Remember back in the day when social media was just a means for posting pictures of your tacos on #TacoTuesday?  For a few years, we got away from that.  Social media became a source for news and entertainment.  It's even become a market place boom town for local businesses.  Now it seems we're just reverting back to posting our lunch.  But with video!

     It's not going to be long before one of these YouTubers out there ends up dead at the hands of a crazed fan.  It's sick, but it happens.  Look at John Lennon or Selena.  These YouTubers are not making content for their "fans" anymore, but for their "fanatics" instead.  You know, fanatics... Those people that adore celebrities so much that they want to dig down deep and know all their most personal details.  The kind of people that just want to sit and watch you eat.  Yeah...  Creepy...

Making your fish look bigger in pictures.

     I've talked about this before, and it got a few people upset.  "It's their fish, let them hold it how they want too!"  Fine.  Hold it however you want.  Just know that 1. You're not fooling anybody, and 2. You're only lying to yourself:

     Congratulations, you just caught the fish of a life time!  Now let's take a picture of it.  But let's make it appear bigger than it actually is so that 20 years from now you can look back on this once-in-a-lifetime moment under a false lens.  So that you can remember this moment as it didn't actually happen and eventually erase the real moment from your memory.  So that you can spend the rest of your life trying to top your new personal best only to be constantly disappointed that your next toad doesn't appear to be even close to the monster from your past.  

     But don't worry, we can make excuses.  The fishery had declined since the fish kill, it's over ran with dinks now.  Game and Fish doesn't care about the fisheries anymore.  They just don't make bait like they used to.  But no, it's definitely not due to the fact that you over exaggerated the size of your catch 20 years ago and now you live in a dream land where you believe 38 inch largemouth are actually a possibility based on a 20 year old photo...  Well, that escalated quickly....

Unboxing videos.

     Let me be clear here, I'm not talking about the ones where someone opens their latest LTB or MTB and takes it out on the lake showing how to catch fish with what's in the box.  Those are legit, cough cough Gene Jensen cough.  I'm talking about the ones where teenagers with no chores to do or part time jobs to work open the box on camera and then read aloud the text on the back of the packages.  They then nod approvingly as if their lackluster criticism meant anything to anyone before moving onto the next bait in the box.  They usually end with, "Well, this is the third box of my three month subscription I got for my birthday, so I don't know if I'll be making anymore of these videos, but feel free to keep watching my channel so you can stay updated on where I eat lunch before me and Jimmy go down to the creek..."

     But wait, there's more....

     Another "genre" of Unboxing vids are the ones where someone gets their order in from Tackle Warehouse.  These people know what they ordered, now they feel the need to open it up on camera and explain to the world that they just bought 30 packs of Senkos in 25 different colors.  Because, well, these people don't know how to fish well enough on anything other than a weightless Senko but they sure have the color of the flake down to a dang science.

     Instead of "Unboxing videos", these should be called "Bragging videos".  That's really all it is.  "Hey guys, JimmyBoob13 here, just got my TW order in and wanted to show off to you all how much of my dad's money I just threw away..."  Later in the video, said kid will indubitably go borrow dads F350 because he needs it to go get Burger King.

The rod in your mouth picture (excluding fly fishermen).

     This is a recent one I've only started to notice since taking on a rod sponsor.  Sponsors sponsor people because they need to show off their product, so of course they REALLY like it when their products are in the picture along with your 8 pound piggy.  Did you know though, there are ways to do  this without looking like some idiot with a fishing rod in his mouth?  Put the rod ANYWHERE ELSE!  You could put it in the background.  Lay it across your lap.  Have it in a rod holder just over your shoulder.  You could even hold it in your hand (But what about selfies?  We're out of hands!). Figure it out!  You're a grown ass man!  Stop putting things in your mouth!

     Fly fishermen, you are excused because you have a lot of stuff to carry, and you are waist deep in flowing water.

Over priced hand painted crank baits.

     I paid $24 for a crankbait once.  On my first two casts I had no bites.  On my third cast, I caught a boulder and broke it off.  Don't spend $24 dollars on a bait that will, sooner rather than later, be broken off 20 feet below the surface.  Besides, a bass isn't going to pass up your bait just because it doesn't have 3D painted holographic gills and the XLT package with heated seats....

     So what are some things that you don't understand about the fishing industry?  Let me know in the comments below or let me know on any of the social media platforms.

And as always, tight lines!

Is this the best night fishing bass lure possible?

     July in Arizona means one thing...  Hot.  Fishing in this kind of heat can be miserable and dangerous.  Next week I'll be writing a post about how to put up with those hot, miserable, and potentially dangerous fishing trips, but for now let's just ignore that heat and head-lamp up!

 

     One of the most asked questions I see come up this time of year is "what lures work best at night?".  For every one person who asks that question, there are three people with different answers.  In lieu of making another "top 5 lures" article, like those that are plastered all across the Internet, or just plugging sponsors by telling you that a 6-inch Cactus Wren Quail Tail, jika-rigged on a Mustad Ultra Point hook, on a Medium Heavy Carrot Stix Wild Wild Green casting rod is the best set up for night fishing, let's break it down so you can understand what makes a lure "good", "better", and "best" for night fishing.  Starting with the fish:

 

     Like us humans, fish have five (actually six) senses.  If a lure does nothing to appeal to one of those senses, it's not a very good lure.  If a lure appeals to several of those senses, it has what some might call "fish catching qualities".  For example, those stinky plastic worms appeal to the sense of smell, but the lively little curly tail spits out vibrations that appeal to the sense of feel (or on a bass, it's lateral line).  Add the clacking of a bead against the weight on a Carolina Rig and you have a light clicking noise that will wake up his ears too.  In general, the more "fish catching qualities" your lure has, the better it is. 

 

     During the day, especially in clear water, one of the main senses our lures appeal to is sight.  Some folks spend $25+ on hand painted crankbaits.  We tie on giant hunks of metal, attach a treble hook, and call it a spoon relying on that flash of light to get the attention of a hungry bass.  Some go to the extremes of buying THIS rediculous piece of garbage to get maximum flash.  All that stuff is just a quarter of the qualities that you should be trying to achieve.  Plus, once the sun goes down you lose the light that makes those things effective in the first place.

 

 

     So, what lure works best at night?  Something with all the other qualities.  You need vibration (feel), scent (smell), and rattles (sound).  We can leave out taste because once they get a taste of it, they're already hooked.

 

     The brains over at Strike King have developed a bait that covers these three night time senses.  Their Midnight Special spinnerbait uses a single, large, Colorado blade that pumps out a ton of vibration whether on a retrieve or helicoptering down on the fall. They have also added a small rattle attached to the hook giving it that ability to call out to the fish like a dinner bell.  Finally, I always add a trailer to my spinnerbaits, for three reasons:  1. It gives the bait a bigger profile to appeal to bigger fish, 2. It gives out extra vibration (depending on the type of trailer you choose), and most importantly 3. I can load the plastic trailer up with scent to appeal to that final sense!

 

      Ok, so this bait appeals to all of the senses that a bass has.  It can't get better than that right?  Well, not quite.  This is fishing, there is no magic formula to making the best possible lure.  If there was, someone would have figured it out by now, and none of us would really enjoy fishing all that much anymore.  Fishing is a game.  Your opponent is a living, breathing, thinking, creature.  A creature that has different moods.  One day Gary the Bass might want to chase down that big, bulky, noisy, smelly, spinner bait.  The next he might just want a small subtle straight tail worm.  The key to the game is to figure out what he wants to eat and then deliver it to him.  We all love a good pizza, it's got all four of the main food groups: carbs, meat, cheese, and pizza.  But if the only food available to you was pizza, sooner or later you're going to stop caring about pizza.  This spinnerbait is just pizza...

       So sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting me to tell you what the best possible night fishing lure was.  The truth is, it doesn't exist.  But the next time you're wondering what to tie on in the darkness, remember what makes that spinnerbait pizza, and maybe roll it up in taco form?

     And as always, tight lines!