Fishing with Cliff

I just was at the Washington State Fish and Wildlife website this morning and notice that they are wired up and on Twitter as well as have videos on YouTube?  If you are a Twitter-holic be sure to add them to your follows!

Winter fishing is coming and I know Thomas will be complaining that his fingers are cold when we are out trolling on Puget Sound this Winter.  By far the leader in the market is Glacier Glove but I know there have to be some other manufacturers of quality winter fishing gloves.

So, the question of the day is what is your favorite cold weather fishing glove? 

OK, so some of you out there know that Thomas has gotten himself hitched again (to a great lady BTW) and the wedding was in Las Vegas.  Of course the Reverend and I were in attendance, and after our initial night of revelry the Reverend and I headed off to check out the Bass Pro Store in Las Vegas.

I had been to Las Vegas ~5 times since the Bass Pro store had opened and had always been too busy (or hung over) to get out to see it.  So Friday morning we caught some early breakfast and headed out from the Hooters Casino (where else would we stay?) and took a 15 minute cab ride out to what is not just the Bass Pro Store, but a whole flipping casino.

 
Really?  That is all you have for reels?

Now I like Vegas as much as anyone, but do they really need to turn everything into a casino and hotel?  And if they do, why aren’t they putting on more fishing and hunting related shows?  I am just saying it seems like a natural fit to be putting on some jig flipping competitions, have the archery contests held there and so on…

The Reverend Posing (as best he could) in front of the
mounts in the Las Vegas Bass Pro Shop.

But back to the store.  It is pretty cool.  The Reverend was a bit green, but wandered through with me as best he could.  Those Jager-bombs on top of the tequila shots were just a little too much for him.  Surprisingly, there wasn’t as much fishing stuff there as I had hoped.  The reality of it is that Sportco down there in Fife and the Outdoor Emporium probably have as much as they did at Bass Pro.  It just isn’t all jazzed up with lots of mounts and decorative features.

Over all, I am really glad I didn’t make a trip down there special to see the place, but they did have some clothes that were cool, and the Reverend even bought a new outfit with some of his winnings from the Hooters Casino.  So, I am glad I finally went to see it, but I’m not thoroughly impressed with the Las Vegas Bass Pro shop.

Oh, and sorry for the crappy photo quality.  All I had with me on this trip was my camera phone and it bites!

After spending Saturday morning bobbing around on Puget Sound in the fog, I am left wondering once again, who, if anyone, makes a good short range radar for small boats?  It seems almost inconceivable that in this day and age that someone hasn’t come up with a small, mast mounted radar suitable for boats like our 19′ Alumaweld.

I have seen some small units, but even those would require at least an aluminum rack, which most fishing boats of this size don’t have.  I really would like to find someone to work with us to put an an aluminum  combat fishing rack on the boat, and then work with them to market it, but that is another post.

If you know of somewhere or someone that has a small radar that would be sufficient for things like not running into barges in the fog, and that could be easily mounted on a boat like ours, give us a shout!

We are getting ready to pull the boat out of the water for the yearly maintenance session and I was doing some research on lubricants and boat maintenance when I started hitting references to Boeshield T-9.  People on different boards and forums were praising this stuff as the best thing to use for lubing everything from electrical contacts to the snaps on the canvas.

 
What do you think of Boeshield T-9 Lubricant?

After reading up on the stuff, I found out that Boeshield T-9 was developed at Boeing and works to lube and protect damn near everything.

Boeshield T-9® was developed and licensed by The Boeing Company to fill their need for a superior lubricant/protectant.
The formulation, based on a unique combination of solvents and waxes, is designed to penetrate metal pores and dissolve minor corrosion, then leave a resilient waxy coating that lasts for many months.
We began by successfully introducing Boeshield T-9® to the tough saltwater marine market for lubricating and protecting all metals. It works well on engines and deck hardware as well as electronics, batteries and wiring connections. It is non-conductive and will not cause short circuits.

So we will be picking some up this week and trying it out on the boat to see if Boeshield T-9 really is the bomb-diggity it is hyped up to be.  If it is you will definitely be hearing about it in the future!

If you are feeling like you might want to test Boeshield T-9 out yourself you can pick some up at WestMarine! If you do, be sure to drop back buy after you use it and let us know what you think!

The Winter months are here and unless you are a Steelhead fisherman, the opportunities for catching fish are getting slim.  Chinook won’t be back until February and the lakes are mostly closed and who wants to sit in a boat when it is below freezing anyway.  That makes this a great time to clean and maintain your fishing lures, clean your fishing reels and maintain your rods.

Cleaning your fishing reels is not very complicated and unless you really have beat on them, you don’t need to fully disassemble them, just gently wash them down with soapy water to remove and dirt or salt film and then lubricate.  If your line is closing in on the one year old mark, give some thought to putting on some fresh.  Nothing sucks more than losing a nice fish to crappy line.  Not that we hook nice fish that often.

Lures generally don’t need much attention, but it never hurts to check the hooks, untangle the mess in the tackle box and see what you have, what you are missing and what needs to be replaced.  There is much talk about having ‘human scent’ on your lures, so consider using surgical gloves when you clean them and put them away.  This year I am going to test this out a little and see if any ‘treatment’ works better than another.

Flashers and such usually need a good cleaning as well and this is your chance to modify them and clean up the connection points.  I like to scrub off any corrosion and hit bad spots with spray lacquer to help keep the salt water at bay as long as possible.

Maintaining rods is fairly easy, and a good wash down with soapy water to remove gick and salt is usually enough.  Again if spots are turning green I scrub them down and hit them with a shot of lacquer making sure not to get any in the guides.

All in all it isn’t too hard to do the maintenance required to keep your fishing gear in top shape and ready to catch fish.  If they ever show up….

Anyone that has followed our show for a while knows that we hate with a passion the Lowrance LMS-332 that was installed on the boat.  I know for a fact that Thomas has nearly thrown it over the side more than once.  The biggest problem lately is that it will work for a while, then drop the dreaded "GPS module not responding" message.  It seems to like to do this at random and at the worst time possible.

So tonight I thought I would do a search for lowrance "gps module not responding" and see if there was an easy fix.  I was stunned with the number of posts on different fishing forums and other places all with the same complaint.  Also not too surprising was the frequency of comments like "I want to throw it overboard" and "Lowrance has horrible customer service!"

I know from our experience is that they really Lowrance doesn’t give a crap about supporting their customers.  When we did send our unit in, it took them several months to get it back to us.  Yeah, that is helpful, especially when they never let us what was going on.  Several times I have invited their reps out to go fishing with us and do some demonstrations on how to get the most out of our electronics, and possibly answer some of our customer service questions.  They of course never have taken us up on any of our offers or even answered any emails.  It is amazing that a company like Lowrance can be so arrogant and callous towards their customers.  Until they decide to pull their heads out of their asses we will keep bitching about them and doing our best to keep people from buying them.  If any of you reps from other companies like Garmin or Furuno would like to give us a shout and hook us up with a new fish finder and GPS we would definitely be up for bragging about how cool your gear is.

Do you have a Lowrance horror story or Lowrance complaint that you would like to share?  The comments are open, so feel free to log in and let the world know what your bitch with Lowrance is! I invite any Lowrance rep reading this to drop me a note and speak up.  If you want to improve your companies bad reputation, here is your chance!

According to this article on Copper River Salmon, the season is off to a slow start, primarily due to the weather.  This coupled with worries that the run will be late and/or small may drive the supply of the much touted Copper River Salmon down and the prices up. 

The big deal about Copper River Salmon is supposedly the oils the fish store up to survive the 300 mile run through rough terrain to their spawning grounds.  This makes them extra tastey and even better for you with their Omega-3 oils and such.  Personally, I can’t taste enough of a difference to justify the price.  I think I would be just as happy with a cheaper Salmon that was smoked to perfection!

For those of you that got out on Puget Sound this last weekend, you know that it was the nicest weather we have seen all year.  After weeks of on again, off again small craft advisories it was a great change of pace. 

Only problem we ran into was no fish.  We even had the State boat swing by and talk to us, and they hadn’t seen any fish come in out of area 9.  Oh well, it was a good day to be out drinking beer and BSing with the guys and bitching about the women folk.  Not that any of our women give us reason to complain….

You should see another video from us next week.  Part 2 of the ICAST show will be coming out.  After that, I have no idea what is up next!