I imagine many of us have had to improvise while out fishing. Maybe something broke or was missing so we made due with what we had or could find. I was out fishing the other day with my two children for Bluegills. My Son caught a nice size one, who took the hook very deep. We decided to keep it. Problem was we were going to be at this park fort a while, as we had not visited the playground. So, needed to keep fish fresh while we played in the park. I did not have a stringer, as I stopped carrying one some time ago. Kids were spin fishing but I had brought along my fly rod and vest. I happened to have some old backing. Cut a three foot piece of backing, tied a loop in one end and tied the other end around a small stick. Had to whittle one end of the stick so it would pass through fish?s mouth, gills and then through the loop. It worked well enough to hold three more Bluegills until we fixed them and ate for dinner. A 2 and 5 year old are easily impressed with such innovative skills. Any other stories of fishing innovation?
Mine isn’t exactly a streamside innovation, but it was created because of a streamside problem. One morning, my fishing buddy, after tying on a tandem rig with two flies, discovered that he forgot to put his strike indicator on. (He was using one of those little hard foam ones with a hole and a toothpick–they are commonly called “Lightning Strike” indicators around here) He asked me if I had a knife or something, and I said no. He said that he wished that his indicator had a slit in it, so he could just slide it on. So, he cut off his tippet and started all over again. That got me thinking.
I went home and made a little saw using a 2" wooden dowel, a piece of a coping saw blade, and Gorilla Glue. Voila! I put this in my vest. Now anytime I buy uncut indicators, all I need to do is grab my saw and slice into them.
It works for me.
Was fishing a private pond in Maryland, just outside Washington, DC, many, many tears ago and forgot my stringer or any means to hold fish. This nice five acre pond held some impressive largemouths and gigantic crappie. Was fishing with my first flyrod; a Sears Ted Williams model which I still have. Found a dirty red and white no account fly hung in the pond side willows and started to use it. Crappie would hit it like piranha to a fresh steak. Caught the first big 'un and realized; where the @#$%^&* is my stringer. Innovation, as you say, came upon me and the problem was solved quickly. Whenever I caught one would take out the trusty pocket knife, cut one of the pond side willows and slide the crappie onto it through the gills and out the mouth. Know that doesn’t sound too nice; but, the wife said, “Bring some home to eat this time” and SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed - for the uninitiated) was rewarded with a fresh mess of fine crappie for supper. They weren’t on the trees for very long as I probably caught the whole mess in fifteen minutes. Thanks for reminding me of this day. It was fantastic fishing for a while.
I may have told this before. One day I was targeting bluegill. When I arrived at the water I realized I had my 2wt rod but the wrong reel. This reel was loaded with WF6F or WF5F (that detail is a bit fuzzy now). Well I didn’t want to miss a day of fishing so I unspooled the heavier line, turned it around, and fished with the running line portion. Worked great!
While we are in the boat out on the lake. To keep fish cool and fresh we clean them right away then wrap them in a section of paper towel , dip them in water to thoroughly wet the paper towel. Then place them out of the sun in the bottom of the boat. They stay lots cooler that way till you can get them into a cooler with ice.
A wet gunny sack does as well. The evaporation helps keep the temp down.
