Right now the have some fantastic deals on Howler Brothers apparel, FishGillz sunglasses, and more! TightLinz is also donating 1% of all sales to the Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation.

Register for your TightLinz account using my referral link or just go straight to TightLinz (non-referral link) and create your own referral link.

Looking for a one-of-a-kind gift for the fisherman the has everything? You just found it!

Bamboo fishing rods are a cool, handcrafted blast from the past with more than 25 hours of labor in each one. Contemporary bamboo rod makers tend to focus on fly fishing rods–but why shouldn’t conventional fishermen enjoy fishing bamboo as well? Sixty years ago all respectable fishing rods were crafted of bamboo and today we are bringing that same opportunity to you.

What’s this all about, anyway? By pledging your support of this project, you are pre-ordering a bamboo casting rod at a huge discount. Our projected retail price for these rods is $500 so backers of this project will get rods at over 50% off (we’re covering US shipping too). See backer reward options on the right for details.

These rods make great gifts and at this price, you may consider more than one. If you’d like to give a rod as a Christmas gift, we’d be happy to provide a gift certificate. Please add a note when you place your pre-order.

When will backer rewards ship? Your pre-order will be initiated at funding of this project. Rods typically take about 4 weeks to build, so we’ll ship by the middle to end of January based on total volume ordered and where your pre-order sits in the queue (so order early!). We’ll provide weekly build updates until all pre-order rods are shipped.

What makes these rods unique? Each rod is painstakingly hand-split and hand-planed of genuine Tonkin bamboo, and then formed into the iconic hexagonal blank–a 5-1/2 foot, light-action, browntone casting rod.

Read more and show your support on PeerBackers.com

I opened the end of the its PVC tomb and pulled out a shiny new 2011 Magnesium Stick Worm – Swimming Bait Special 7’0″ Med-Heavy casting rod! With any Kistler rod the first thing most people would notice is its incredibly light weight. For me it wasn’t the weight that caught my attention, it was the colour. Green. It wasn’t a terribly pretty green by any stretch, but once I got it outside and the sunlight hit it it had a whole new glow to it. After a day of using this rod it didn’t matter. I would still use this rod even if it was bright pink, it is really that good. It’s so good in fact, that I haven’t even touched any of the six bass rods I have since I got it.

The rod is specially designed for stick-worms, light Texas and Carolina rigs, spinnerbaits, swimming-jigs and swim-baits. If you know my fishing style, I don’t have to tell you I used it mostly with spinnerbaits. The rod felt incredible paired with my Quantum Tour Edition PT reel. The microguides not only look great but perform extraordinarily. Even the baitholder hook impressed me!

The Specs:

Fuji ECS singler groove, blank exposed reel seat
Fuji stainless steel, hardloy guides and tip
Action: Fast
Length: 7′ 0″
Power: Medium-Heavy
Lure weight: 1/8 – 3/4 oz.
Line weight: 12 – 17 lb.
Handle length: 10″
Line guides: 8 plus the tip

The rod was priced around $200 USD when I got it, and is available right now for only $99! I really don’t think you can find another new rod on this planet that is priced better. The hype is real, even this mid range Kistler rod blows away any of the rods I currently own. I cant wait to get my hands on one of their high end rods!

Still not a believer? Stay tuned for the full review later this month!

The large tube shaped package stood before me, reaching all the way up to my ceiling. In its packaging it looked more like a stripper pole then a fishing rod. The package felt way too light to be a big heavy duty musky rod and for a moment I feared that someone had stolen the rod. I was relieved as I pulled the rod out of the case and saw the Tackle Industries logo starring back at me. It was extraordinarily light weight for its size, weighing in at only 9.4 ounces (268 grams) on my scale. To put that into perspective, a full can of Coke weighs 12 ounces. When you pick it up, its sort of like picking up a carton of milk when you expect it to be full and it isn’t.

I like big butts

Tackle Industry musky rod (top) compared to Shimano Compre musky rod (bottom)

A few specs on this rod:

“Mag Heavy” XH Power Rods: Retail $145.95 (Only $120 during the current summer sale!)
– Rod length is 9′
– Lure weight rated: 3-12oz
– Line weight rated: 60-130lb
– Power: XH or Extra Heavy
– Speed/Action: Medium Fast

- Quality Fuji® components and Fuji® Reel seats
- Number of guides (10); Fuji® Alconite tip top guide and 9 SiC
- 9′ Solid blank rod handle length: 18″
- 1.3″ diameter oversize cork handle with flared end for ultimate comfort all day
- 6″ cork foregrip

This is the fifth rod in my muskie/pike arsenal and despite being more then a foot longer then the others, its the second lightest, just behind my Shimano Compre muskie rod. I cant wait to test this rod out on some big fish!

Besides its good looks, the real selling feature of this EXO reel is its rediculously light weight. Any fisherman who spends all day on the water knows just how grueling it can be. The reel alone is 3.9 oz less than the equivalent size Tour Edition and Energy PTi spinning reels. Now that doesn’t sound like much, but there isn’t another quality reel out there that is so light and at the end of the day you’ll feel the difference.

Features

Stacked ceramic front-adjustable drag system
Polymer-stainless hybrid PT bearings
LMS™ line management system
Extra-hard PT gears
Lightweight, machined aluminum crank handle
Continuous Anti-Reverse™

“Metal Where it Matters”. That’s the thinking behind our exoskeletal hybrid construction. It combines a special, ultra-rigid aluminum alloy in load bearing areas with a lightweight composite that reduces weight in non-critical locations by 50%. This allows us to build the lightest possible frame with absolutely no sacrifice in strength. In fact, it’s 38% stronger than magnesium and 6 times stronger than a graphite composite frame.

Even just being able to fish with Dave Mercer is a prize I’d love to win, but to be able to drive away with his boat after is dream come true!

The contest ends on August 14th and full contest details can be found on Dave’s website.

via Wired

And just in case anyone missed the carrot reference- CarrotStix.com

Not unreasonably, most sport anglers want to catch trophy fish; the bigger the better (indeed, we all know anglers whose catches continue to grow in size long after the event, growing bigger with each recounting of the story of the fishing trip). However, this is Japan, where miniaturization pervades all aspects of life, in gardening, art, computers, electronics; we all have seen the clichéd ‘capsule’ hotels and bonsai pine trees you can pick up with two fingers. This also applies to sport fishing, in one of the oldest angling traditions in this country: tanago fishing.

Tanago is the generic term in Japanese covering the small freshwater fish of the Rhodeus, Tanakia and Acheilognathus genera; there are probably a dozen or so species that are considered sport fishing targets. In English, these fish are generally referred to as bitterling. Some species of tanago grow up to 15cm in size, although 5 – 10cm is more common. During spawning season, the males tend to develop a very striking pattern, a mixture of red and iridescent metallic colours, while the females, although ‘drab’ in appearance, develop a very long ovipositor, sometimes the length of their own body. A full description of the different species, and their very unusual mating habits and life cycle, is outside the scope of this text, but to me tanago are interesting fish for both ichthyologic and angling reasons.

Tanago are cyprinids, the carp family of fishes, and are generally omnivorous. They thrive in the waterways and channels surrounding rice paddies and lotus fields, sometimes in ditches no wider than a couple of feet or requiring a long slog through bamboo or reed thickets. I usually head to the lake system of Kasumigaura, a short journey north from Tokyo. Finding the spots holding tanago is part of the fun of the fishing, and there is always the distraction of the local flora and fauna if you do not; I have spotted a huge variety of waterfowl, and once even remarked a peregrine falcon – something most Japanese ornithologists can only dream of. Tanago are not fussy feeders and will take baits like bloodworm, commercially available starch or gluten-based pastes for carp fishing and even boiled egg yolk, on a simple float rig with a single hook. The main difference is of course, the size of the tackle, which is scaled to the size of the fish targetted.

Tanago anglers hold the belief that the smaller the fish landed, the greater the testament to the skill of the angler, and seek to catch the smallest fish possible. The prized catch of the determined tanago angler is the fish that can ‘fit inside a one yen coin’ i.e., is less than 20mm in length. After six months of tanago fishing, this prize still eludes me. A fishing buddy has taught me the ‘secret’ of sharpening one’s own tanago hooks: this is done under a microscope, with a watchmaker’s diamond file. It is not surprising then that most tanago anglers in Japan are considered eccentric, if not outright lunatics. Indeed, I once met a man who used to be a professional bass angler, but after winning several national competitions it ceased to amuse him.

He sold all his trophy bass gear to take up tanago angling on bamboo rods; now he travels the country year-round in the solitary pursuit of this new game. Tanago rods are made from bamboo and are usually 50cm to 1 metre in length, and the hooks 4 or 5mm long. In the Edo Period, the line used for tanago fishing was usually a single human hair, preferably taken from ‘a woman you love’. Allegedly, female hair has just the right level of elasticity and sinking characteristics necessary for tanago fishing, although perhaps a more prosaic explanation would be that the technology of the time could not spin silk thin enough, and that women wore their hair much longer than men did. Whether you choose human hair or the more readily available nylon, you can fit all your fishing tackle in a small pouch, or indeed your shirt top pocket; the rods usually break down in several pieces to about 20cm. There is a historical reason for this. In Edo, sport angling was considered a gross indulgence and in some periods, proscribed by law; one could hide a tanago rod easily in a pouch or bag slung from the waist. However, much like the use of hair as fishing line, history is subject to fancy, and whether the objective was to hide the rod from censorious authorities, or just to avoid the remonstrations of a scolding, non-fishing wife, is unknown.

In summary, tanago fishing has proved for me to be a most diverting form of angling. For those used to battling mahi mahi or tuna on a high running sea or epic plays with feisty trout on a fly, it may seem a highly eccentric past-time. I thought the same, until I tried it for myself. In the meantime, I have taken to making my own bamboo rods for tanago fishing, but that is another story, as is the various ways one can eat these fish. I have come close, once, to the holy “one-yen fish” but when I do succeed, I will be sure to remember it, and it will be one catch that does not become exaggerated in size with time.

On a lucky day in Tokyo

- Adam Guy

Adam, thank you very much for you entry into our 2010 Contributor Contest. Your amazing contribution has won FIRST PLACE in our contest and you will receive a one-of-a-kind Sportsman Trophy Plaque, as well as a copy of Fins & Skins magazine!

The reel is backed with 12# Suffix Siege monofilament (not show in photos), running 6# Siglon Hi-Vis Float line, and will eventually be tipped with some Seguar fluorocarbon. This type of fishing is extremely new to me, I’ve never caught a steelhead in my life, however a few of my friends have convinced me to join them and I can’t wait for the streams to start flowing.

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing Jordan from Sportsman Trophy Plaque again this year, and getting our 2010 Contributor Contest plaque to the printers.

For details see the Spring Fishing & Boat Show website.