There has been at least half a dozen new fishing games released for the Nintendo Wii this year. I’ve played almost all of them, and the all have one thing in common, they suck. I’ve been playing fishing games since the late 80’s back on the original Nintendo and there has been a lot of solid fishing experiences over the years but for some reason the Wii has failed to deliver.
I had high hopes for the Nintendo Wii and fishing games because of the whole motion control system. In theory its the perfect system to release a fishing game on. In reality, all of the fishing game that have been released so far have been very buggy and fail to truly capitalize on the unique controls.
Shimano’s first venture into the Wii gaming world does however stand out among the other releases this year. Graphically the game isn’t pretty, and its filled with glitches, but its the only new fishing game that has kept my attention for more then an hour. The game is incredibly easy, so rather then spending your time trying to catch a fish, you instead spend it trying to beat your own records. It’s possible to catch thousands of pounds of fish in ten minutes!
What makes Shimano Xtreme stand out is the fact that it offers three completely different fishing experiences – rod and reel fishing, spear fishing and bow fishing. The spear and bow fishing involve nothing more then looking around for splashing fish and then pointing your cross-hairs at them. It’s incredibly simple, and strangely rewarding. Of course, if you are looking for a regular rod and reel fishing experience there is nothing special here to keep you playing.
It’s no secret, we’re big fans of Shimano’s fishing equipment. Their fishing lineup just got even better! They recently acquired the company that is responsible for PowerPro braided fishing line! So what does this mean, higher prices or lower prices? Who knows?! I’m hoping lower – PowerPro is great line, but is quite pricey when you look at the alternative lines out there.
We wasted no time once we arrived at the beach and immediately jumped in our boat, and Dan into his. We had the same guide as before (Cayo), since he seemed to share our intense passion for catching fish. The sea was a little bit calmer this day and we were able to make very good time getting to our destination. Cayo carved his way through the waves and swells with the precision only a person who had spent their entire life on the ocean could do. The sun beat down hard on us as our guide netted bait fish. It was obvious that today was going to be a very hot day on the water, even though clouds had begun to move in. We lathered up with sun screen and headed for deeper water.
The day started slower then our previous trip. We circled the area for a quite a while before we had our first hit. It was certainly worth the wait when line started peeling off my reel. I had decided to stick with the equipment supplied by Fishermen’s Fleet this time instead of my muskie equipment. Now I was using a nice big Shimano reel spooled with forty pound line. While many anglers use a heavier line for fishing saltwater, all the reels here seemed to be spooled with the forty pound line because the main fish we are targeting (Pargo, commonly known as Snapper) have very good eyesight and don’t hit the bait on heavier line. The only drawback to using only forty pound line is that these fish are extremely strong and can reach over one hundred pounds. They immediately pull straight down into the sharp rocks below, cutting your line. The idea is to chase the fish once hooked and bring in as much line as possible. You can only hope that the fish will head toward deeper water, because if they don’t, you will more then likely loose the fish. I of course learned this first hand after battling a good size pargo for almost five minutes before my line got cut. There isn’t a whole lot you can do when these fish start to run. I tried my best to keep the rod tip up and bring in as much line as possible to no avail. When you try to bring in the fish quickly you risk the chance of breaking the line from stress, but when you reel to slow you run the risk of loosing the fish to the rocks. It requires a very precise mixture of finesse and brute strength.
About a week ago I took a trip up to Springwood Cottages with a few friends. We planned this trip perfectly for the opening of bass season here in Ontario and wanted to visit a lake that wouldn’t see much boat traffic. Opening season on some lakes near Toronto can be brutal in terms of [...]
