Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Small but important elements of fishing equipment.


In my previous posts I described quite good almost everything what is necessary during fishing trips. Although There are a few things that are sometimes indispensible but we often forget about them. Of course this is only my subjective opinion, but I think lot of You will agree with me.

First of all, if this is not winter and there is no snow around I always need to have a good insect repellent. There is nothing more anoying than dozens of mosquitoes landing on my face and hands. There are plenty of different repellents, but there is one rule to find a good one. It MUST contain DEET.  One of my choices is Lifesystems Expedition 50+. 

The second thing I always have with my is small waterproof bag for my car keys, wallet, fishing license or mobile phone. I often fish in rain so everything that can get wet must be well protected. In addition even if it is sunny we can fall into water and wet our documents or electronic devices.  Something like Aquapac Keymaster will help you to avoid such a bad situation.

Third thing is Safety Whistle. There are plenty of possible accidents that can happen in the wilderness. I can imagine that someone break his leg, all fall into water or swamp. Sometimes we need to call help and the best way to do this is a safty whistle.  This one is very good example it's loudness coud be up to 108dB! There is also good to know that he internationally recognised distress signal is 6 blasts of the whistle with a 1 minute break and then repeated. The reply is 3 blasts with the same pause.

By the same reason  there is good to have light stickers. Not only for calling help, but also for marking our camp or some important things we don't want to loose. Light stickers are small, cheap and they can always be usefull.

I realize there is more things like that, but I've chosen the most important 4 for me. What are your propositions??  

Monday, December 17, 2012

Today I want to show you my best tackle box/bag. Best because hand made and adjusted to my needs. Why I decided to make my lure bag by myself? I have a lot of different size pike crankbaits, twitchbaits and jerkbaits. Some of them are thicker, some slimmer, but all are quite fragile and it is easy to scratch the lacquer. On the other hand I like to change lures often and I hate tangled treble hooks.



Finally i found out how to solve my problems. I bought an inflexible thermic bag (~10in high), and different size foam pipe covers.


Next step was to cut pipe covers in equal length pieces and put them into a bag. Another way was to buy PCV pipes, but foam covers are better for fragile lure lacquer.

There is one more benefit of this bag. If you take out one of pipe cover pieces, you have a perfect place to put your beer  while fishing :)

Make Your own Handmade Tackle Bag!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Christmas gifts for outdoor man

Now is this time of year when everyone think about Christmas presents. What should I buy? What if he/she has this already? What would make him/her happy? Lot of questions year by year. But if you think about a present for an angler... It's much easier. I would like to show you what I would like to get!! :) Hmm.. Maybe my Santa will read this post? :)

Sometimes we buy something more expensive, somtimes something small. I have my choices for all ranges :) What should I start with...

Fitrst of all it is always good to get some tool, like multitool, knife or pocketknife. Even if you have one already you can put second one into tackle box, car or boat and it will always be usefull. Victorinox  pocketknife is the best choice. There are many models and you will find your price range for sure.



An anternative for pocketknife is multitool. It is usually bigger and more usefull for harder work. I'm just about to buy one for myself!  Gerber Dime Pocket Micro Tool is one of my choices.



I'm also a big fan of good headlights. Although as I wrote in one of my previous posts it must be good quality, light and must have more lighting modes. One option is Petzl Tikka - new model for 2012. everyone would be happy with it.



If you want to go wild and buy something awesome. And of course you are not an expert in fishing equipment, one of the best choice would be GoPro camera.



In the era of the Internet everyone want to show his fishing successes and sometimes a simple photo is not enough. Personal outdoor HD cameras are increasingly popular. And everyone would like to have a movie like this with his trophy:


Of course there are other good choices for a gift, but my point was to show you how easy is to buy an awesome gift to an angler or any outdoor man :)

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Winter...

Well... so that's end fishing season for me. There is a lot of snow everywhere, lakes and dam reservoirs are covered by ice. I don't like ice fishing so they are closed for me for a few months. I can still go fishing for trout, danube salmon or chub, but when it is -10, -15C I usually pass:)

Just before winter came I went to a trip to our most beautiful, untouched by human hand mountains - High Tatras. Fishing is my life, but this views have something that can't be compared to anything else.That's why I wanted to show them to you.










Visit Poland and High Tatras!!


Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Is GPS necessary?

When we fish in big lakes, dam reservoirs and sometimes rivers it is necessary to use boat. It allows us to reach spots far from the shore and find fishes unreachable for other anglers. Problem is how to find a good spot and how to remember where it was??

Of course we need to use a sonar that allows us to see fishes and  find spots where they can be. Some good and expensive sonars have also a GPS function, which allows to remember good spots or places where we caught a big fish. But what if we don't have a lot of money to by an expensive sonar? Are we forced to finding the same place over and over again?

Of course not! Before the GPS devices era we had a good method for this. There are many characteristic points around lake or dam reservoir. Big trees, electric poles, huge chimneys etc... Looking at them and their position relative to each other we can find our spot with a very good precision!! 

Of course we have to remember this positions very good or write them down and this method is useless while night fishing or fishing in the fog. Luckily we have basic handheld GPS devices! They are cheap and they do their job splendidly! There are of course different types of them but I will show you the best choices (according to me of course).

If you don't want to spend a lot of money but you want to have a good working reliable device you could think about Garmin eTrex 10 GPS Unit




Garmin eTrex 10 GPS Unit retains the core functionality, rugged construction, affordability, waterproof and long battery life. That is all you need.

If you want to spend a little mor money you can think about Garmin Garmin eTrex 20 GPS



or Garmin Garmin eTrex 30 GPS




This devices are a little more expensive, but they provide more functionalities like 2.2in 65K colour display, microSD™ card slot for your own different maps, quicker FIX or wireless connection with other similar devices (for Garmin Garmin eTrex 30 GPS)

The choice is yours, but I assure all this devices will do their job and will help you to be more effective. It's worth to try!

If you buy your device it is worth to thing about different accesories for it like Garmin Carry Case or Power Bundle. 


Have fun with your first Handheld GPS device!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Nice Rainbow trout

Next weekend and we are fishing for rainbow trout in Czarna Przemsza river again!
Last weekend we caught a brown trout instead of rainbow. Today we accomplished our goal :) This time it was colder than week ago. It was at about 0C and in the evening came frost. Now - at about midnight it is -2C and it's snowing. Everything is white outside... 



We had only 3 hours of fishing but it was enough for 2 nice rainbows. Mine was smaller ~12in, but Natalia had a big luck to land a beautiful dark coloured ~15 - 16in rainbow! 

On this photo our trout has a little "scared eyes", but I can assure it came back to water in a good shape! :)