Article by Larry Jock
I’m a big fan of gadgets, especially those that are cheap and make your life easier and more enjoyable.
Like many fishermen, I keep some of my rods in the cabin of my boat and no matter how careful I am storing my fishing rods, when it comes time to pull them out of the cabin, they always seem to be tangled.
Well, I stumbled upon this product at Bass Pro Shops called the XTS Rod Sock. They are nothing more than a tube of woven, expandable mesh that slips over your fishing rod. The tube protects your guides and keeps your rods from getting tangled with each other, whether in your boat or the back of your truck or van.
The XTS Rod Socks come in 2 different styles, one for spinning rods and one for baitcast rods. They also come in 3 different lengths, accommodating rods from 4’6” up to 8’.
I would suggest that if your baitcast rod has larger profile guides, order the Rod Sock designed for spinning rods. The baitcast model was too narrow and wouldn’t slip over all the guides on my trolling rods, so I had to send it back.
The XTS Rod Sock sells for only $4.99, which is not very much when you think about the frustration you encounter with tangled rods. It is money well spent.
By now, everyone is familiar with Berkley’s line of Gulp! artificial baits. They have taken the fishing world by storm and are still expanding their line of products. Their latest innovation is the Gulp! Heads that won the top prize for Top Terminal Tackle at the 2012 ICCAST show in Orlando.
The Gulp! Head is made from a lead-free composite material that comes in 3 different models: Darter JiggHead, Minnow JiggHead and the BDS, which stands for Bait Delivery System.
The Darter JiggHead is designed for inshore flats fishing and comes in 6 weight and hook size combinations, from a 1/8 oz. with a 1/0 hook up to a 3/8 oz. jig with a 4/0 hook. They come in 5 different colors: chartreuse, new penny, red, white and unpainted. A pack of 3 sells for $4.99.
The Minnow JiggHead are designed for targeting fish with thinner skin mouths, such as weakfish and speckled trout. The thinner diameter hooks come in jigs ranging from 1/16 oz. up to 3/8 oz. Available colors are black, chartreuse, chartreuse/pearl, green/chartreuse, orange, pearl and smelt. Except for the 1/16 oz jigs, which come in packs of 4, the jigs come in packages of 3 and retails for $4.99.
Finally, the BDS JiggHead are designed to allow anglers to choose how fast or slow their baits fall, ranging from 1.5 feet per second (1/8 oz.) up to 3 feet per second (5/8 oz.). According to the company, “the controlled sink rates and an extended ballasts force a bait to fall in a more natural, horizontal manner, giving the fish more reason and time to react”. These jigs are a little more expensive, costing $4.99 for a package of 2 jigs. They are available in chartreuse, white, red, new penny and unpainted.
Local hardcore fisherman Big Bird Cropper is no stranger to the readers of the Coastal Fisherman. You will find his picture in the paper numerous times throughout the season, whether he is tossing lures around the North Jetty and Rt. 50 Bridge for stripers or fishing the South Jetty and Inlet for flounder, Big Bird is an excellent fisherman and usually returns to the dock with fish.
One of the questions I get asked most frequently from readers is “what is a RoyRig?”, which is the rig that Big Bird uses pretty exclusively, to the point that he has set up a website called RoyRig.com, where folks can log on and read about the rig, check out pictures of catches and purchase the exact rig Big Bird likes to use.
The RoyRig is basically a short-shanked jig head with a salt and pepper rubber swim shad. According to Big Bird, the key to fishing the RoyRig effectively is using the proper weighted jig head to get you in the zone when casting and retrieving. The other key is the short shank on the jighead that allows the tail of the rubber shad to swim more naturally and freely.
If you are interested in learning more about the RoyRig, you can check out Big Bird’s website, or just look for the guy with the ZZ Top beard and the yellow suspenders. He’s hard to miss.
There’s a reason why you see so many fishermen on Delmarva wearing Costa Sunglasses. It’s because they are well made, stylish and have some of the best lenses available today, so it was no surprise to see that they were a big winner at the 2012 ICCAST show with their 580P Sunrise lens.
The 580P lens lets in the most light possible and was designed for anglers who fish during early morning / late afternoon hours, when natural light is low.
Costa’s 580 lens has been out for a couple of years and has been very well received by the fishing community. According to the company, “the lens blocks yellow light from entering the eye, creating razor sharp color enhancement and superior visual acuity.”
The 580P Sunrise lens is available in some of Costa’s most popular frame styles including Corbina, Fisch, Fathom, Hammerhead, Jose, Zane and a few others. Costa styles available with the award winning 580P lens start at $159.
Due to their popularity, Costa Sunglasses are available in the majority of our local tackle shops. If you enjoy fishing early in the morning or late in the afternoon, you might want to give the new Sunrise lens a try.
Another winner at the 2012 ICCAST show in Orlando, FL was the Penn Spinfisher V spinning reel.
I assume Penn named the reel like it did because it is the 5th generation of spinning reels manufactured by the company since 1932. For several years, it appeared that the company lost its way, and Shimano gained massive ground in market share and overall customer satisfaction. I’ve spoken to folks who repair fishing reels and they all seemed to recommend Shimano reels over Penn reels for product quality. Could we be seeing a comeback of the Penn Fishing Tackle Company since its purchase by the Jarden Corporation back in 2007?
The Spinfisher V top feature is its water tight design resulting from 6 seals in their standard reel and 9 seals in their live liner models. Other features include:
•Superline Spool with rubber gaskets that doesn’t require backing when spooling with braided line
•Full metal body, sideplate and rotor
•Friction trip ramp that prevents premature bail trip when casting
•Heavy duty aluminum bail wire
•Infinite anti-reverse
•Line capacity rings
The Spinfisher V comes in a full line of spinning reels, from the SSV3500 that has a maximum drag pressure of 20 lbs. and weighs only 13.4 oz. up to the heavier SSV10500 with 40 lbs. of drag that can hold 750 yards of 50 lb. braid.
I’m a huge fan of live liner reels that give you the flexibility of live bait with basically an open bail. There is nothing more fun than drifting live eels with a live liner reel that has the secondary drive set to basically zero drag. The Penn Spinfish V series includes 3 models of live liner reels (4500, 6500 and 8500).
According to a representative from Pure Fishing, the Spinfisher V reel has been shipping since mid-October, but the company is having trouble meeting demand. Our local tackle shops should be receiving their shipments very soon, if they haven’t already.
In her Ship to Shore column this past summer, Pat Schrawder wrote about the new, high definition sounders and GPS units that were on the market, and this past fall I had an opportunity to see one in operation, and it is extremely impressive.
Currently, Simrad and Garmin are the only two companies that have units on the market utilizing the new CHIRP technology. This breakthrough had been used by the military, but was considered too expensive for the general public. However, a drop in the cost of processing chips made it possible for sonar companies to come up with receivers that could utilize the CHIRP technology that were in a price range that a lot of boat owners could afford.
As Pat explained, most anglers are used to setting their sounder to broadcast at either 50 kHz when fishing in deep water or 200 kHz when fishing in shallow water. The downfall of this single-frequency system is that it fails to give you detailed images in certain situations.
Without getting too technical, CHIRP is a frequency-modulated pulse broadcasted by a transducer that changes the pulse across a range of frequencies, resulting in a much more detailed picture of targets beneath your boat. How detailed you ask? On the Garmin 5212 system installed on my World Cat, I can see my diamond jig bouncing on the bottom in addition to my 30 lb. braided line. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it!
Since the modulated pulse is so sensitive, the amount of power the CHIRP sonar requires is much lower than a single-frequency unit, so the amount of interference shown on your display decreases considerably.
With the Garmin 5212 you get your choice of an 8”, 12” or 15” touchscreen, or you can go with units with dials instead. I chose the 15” touchscreen model, allowing me to have my GPS and fishfinder screens side-by-side. The screen is very easy to read, even on bright, sunny days. The touchscreen can be a little tricky, especially when you are running to the fishing grounds. Bouncing around and trying to touch a spot on the screen can get tough at times. I also find that selecting a waypoint location is clumsy and requires way too many screens to navigate through to finally get to your waypoint list. My unit is very new, so it is possible I just haven’t discovered the best way to use the Garmin 5212. I might be making it harder than it needs to be.
Since the units require 2 transducers, they are not cheap. But if you are looking to replace your current single-frequency system, and you have a chunk of cash available, you may want to seriously look at the CHIRP systems. You’ll be pretty amazed.
Winning first place in an individual category at ICCAST is an honor, so you can imagine the big deal it is to win Best of Show. In 2012, this went to the Hobie Mirage Pro Angler 12 kayak.
Just like when we saw the catamaran boat explosion in Ocean City 10 years ago, we are starting to see more anglers paddling around the bay in kayaks. Looks like too much work to me, but hey, to each their own.
The Hobie Mirage Pro Angler 12 is 36” wide and 12’ long and can hold up to 500 lbs. A fully rigged kayak weighs 120 lbs. and is made of Rotomolded Polyethylene.
Each kayak features:
•Hobie’s MirageDrive with Turbo Fins
•Vantage seating with their Boa System lumbar support
•Under seat tackle storage
•Large rectangular hatch with a pivoting tackle management system
•Retractable rudder system
•Horizontal storage for four fishing rods
•Replaceable mounting boards
•Large front hatch with removable liner
•Livewell-ready cargo area
•Lowrance-ready, but an optional adapter is available for other fishfinder models
You can also get the following options:
•eVolve electric motor
•Livewell
•Plug-in cart
•Aluminum Trailex Trailer
Locally, you can find the Hobie Mirage Pro Angler 12 at Bethany Cycle & Fitness in Bethany Beach, DE and Survival Products in Salisbury, MD.
Over the last couple of years, when taking pictures of good catches of tuna, I noticed more and more anglers trolling Joe Shute’s Fish Finder Lures and Laceration Lures. I personally had never heard of these lures, so it was noticeable when their names started popping up more frequently.
Joe Shute lures are hand made and tied by Joe himself through Fish Finder Tackle, Inc. out of Atlantic Beach, NC. and are now available online at RestlessLadyTackleBox.com and some area tackle shops.
First developed in 1999 for commercial bluefin fishing, the Joe Shute skirts are all hand-tied with tapered heads and a mate friendly design that allows the nose of the ballyhoo to fit snugly into the back of the lure promoting improved tracking. All of the heads are double powder coated to increase durability. The heads and the skirts can be mixed and matched based on the preference of the angler and come in the standard weights in addition to 5 and 8 oz. models.
Laceration Lures have been on the market for the last 2 years after 5 years of research and development. They are produced by Joe Massey in Raleigh, NC and are made from all-American materials. The heads and skirts can be mixed and matched with either hair or rubber skirts and can even be further customized with the boat or angler’s name imprinted right into the acrylic head.
Laceration Lures can be found in small, medium and large models and generally cost less than comparable Black Bart lures.
Like the Joe Shute lures, Laceration Lures have been used by several successful charter boats and can be found at RestlessLadyTackleBox.com.