A Reelly Good Idea

“Let me get this straight,” said Fishergarten’s attorney. “Your new Walmart spinning reel hasn’t even felt the weight of a fish yet, and you want to patent your own reel design?”
 
“Yes,” Fishergarten said patiently. Honestly, attorneys need everything explained before they’ll issue one of those treatises full of inexplicably, placed, commas,. “I sense an emerging market for two-stroke, internal-combustion-engine-powered fishing reels, especially among those who can’t cast very far nor afford boats.”
 
“Uh-huh,” he said.
 
Fishergarten had perfected her elevator speech.
 
“With enough line, you could conceivably stand on the

ocean shore and blast your bait clear into international waters. Of course we would need to use the spincasting type of reel with the cover on it, so you don’t end up with external combustion all over what’s left of your palm. Here’s the artist’s rendering. It needs tweaked a bit to be a schematic.”
 
“That,” he said, “is the worst abuse of PowerPoint I think I have ever encountered. Please pay on the way out. And don’t even think about using my name in that blog.”
 
Yeah, did he get his line in a nest. But it’s his loss, throwing away a chance to explore the aging Boomer generation and its anticipated rise in casts.
 
“You know that was costs, not casts,” said FisherSpouse. “And internal combustion power is not sportsmanlike.”
 
Plainly Fishergarten wasn’t getting any bites on her patent and decided to reel it in for now. Instead, she dived into reel anatomy, covering tension, bail, drag, crank and other surprisingly lurid terms.

She found ample writings on four freshwater types of reels (spincasting, spinning, baitcasting and fly) including this, this, this and the ever-handy “Fishing for Dummies.”
 
Ultimately, Fishergarten landed a sleek rod-and-reel combo, technically named a Shakespeare Reverb, but more recently christened the 12.84. This baby sports five feet six inches of gleaming pink graphite with a smooth little powerhouse spinning reel, five-point-five revolutions per crank and

The 12.84

prespooled with 115 yards of 6 pound line.
 
It did not say so in the ads, but the 12.84 also can let someone unscrew the bolt holding in the crank when packing the car, without telling the 12.84’s owner.
 
“I think I know where this is going,” FisherSpouse said calmly, referring to The Incident at Vega Reservoir.
 
There, Fishergarten found herself poised on a narrow bank of black mud, immersing her new trailrunners, with the 12.84 in hand.
 
“OK,” she told FisherSpouse. “Watch and learn.”
 

Fishergarten's Grandpa's Reel

Carefully, she reached back -- and cast. Instantly, the crank flew off the reel and followed a monofilament trail into the reservoir’s murky depths.

Fishergarten and FisherSpouse stared at the spot where the crank had gone down. Finally, “Nice cast,” he said.

Recalling Chapter 7 of “Fishing for Dummies,” Fishergarten knew that cranks “all turn to bring line into the reel.” In Internet terms, all upload, no download. Fishergarten was going to need that crank back.

Slowly, she waded into the cryogenically cold water. Just slightly before she turned completely blue, she spotted pink, grabbed the crank and bolted for shore.

On their way back to the car, slogging through the super-dense, body-slapping, bug-infested brush, FisherSpouse paused.

“At least,” he said, “you didn’t use internal combustion. No telling where that thing would have ended up.”

Next week, we take a peek at lines and lures. Until then, let’s hear it, FisherFriends. Use the comments section below to give us a little spin about what kind of reel you use and why.

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Fishing

“Well,” FisherSpouse said instructionally, “You want to check flexibility.”

Standing under the arch of fishing poles that designated the store’s fishing aisle in case we otherwise couldn’t find it, Fishergarten watched as FisherSpouse pulled the tip of a rod steadily downward, creating an ever-narrowing bell curve of bendable graphite.

“Maybe you shouldn’t force…” Fishergarten started.

“No, it’s made to do this,” FisherSpouse said. “It has to hold a fighting fish.”

He pulled again, just slightly – and it snapped. Fishergarten and FisherSpouse stared at the disembodied tip.

“I’m guessing it wasn’t supposed to do that,” Fishergarten finally breathed.

“No,” FisherSpouse said testily, reaching for his wallet. “No, it wasn’t.”

To avoid buying any more unusable fishing rods, Fishergarten turned to Google for guidance and found this, this and this  -- plus her bible, “Fishing for Dummies.” Technically, she found, FisherSpouse meant to demonstrate the “action” of the upper “blank.” If Fishergarten is reading this right, the blank is the body of the pole and so named many years ago.

“I don’t know, man,” one Neanderthal said to another over a few beers and a campfire. “Let’s name it tomorrow. It’s late, I’m beat, and I’m just drawing a blank.”

The power is the force needed to bend the blank, and action is how far the blank bends. It looks more like a line graph than a bell curve, which is probably where FisherSpouse miscalculated.

Fishergarten then turned to an informal survey, asking "What is a good beginner fishing rod?":

FisherSis: “Semi-heavy for the lunkers and not too light of action. And don’t use my name in that blog thing you write.”

FisherSister-in-Law (FisherSIL): “Think of it as anatomy and physiology. The blank is the anatomy, the action and power are the physiology, but they need the reel or the heart to start. Okay? Oh, and don’t be using my name in that blog. Remember the cease-and-desist order.”

FisherSon: "Mom, I'm trying to work."

FisherDaughter and FisherDaughter-in-Law (FisherDIL), finally reached in faraway Twin Lakes, Colorado, an area with sketchy cell reception:  “Rod…reel… already strung.

Because Colorado

...Not … telescopic kind. … Don’t … names … blog.”

FisherDaughter may still be scarred by the previous summer’s Twin Lakes incident, when she hooked a rock while fishing off of a 10-foot dirt cliff.

“See mom, you just pull the rod to the side this way,” she demonstrated. “Then you pull it to the other side and try to work it loose.”

FisherDaughter jerked the line to the left, eliciting a sharp crack. In an inadvertent action, the top half of her telescopic blank sailed over the cliff and into the water.

“Hmm,” said Fishergarten, peering down as the waves lapped at the broken blank.

“It’s unfortunate, Mom,” FisherDaughter said briskly. “But it’s an old rod.” She cut the line, and the blank sank. Fishergarten made a mental note to check the executors of her living will.

Finally, Fishergarten settled on 5 feet 6 inches of gleaming pink Shakespeare graphite that she calls the 12.84 because that’s what she paid for it down at the Walmart. Handily inscribed on the blank are the words Action: Medium. Enough said, we think.

Next week, we’ll have some reel fun, but meantime, FisherFriends, use the comments section below to tell us about your first fishing rod. What did you like and not like? Let’s see some action and not leave this blank, okay? And as always, have fun!

Welcome to FisherClass

“You can’t do that,” the accountant told Fishergarten. “You cannot deduct nor depreciate fishing poles, reels, bait, boots, certainly not a boat, and not those silly waders.”

Fishergarten had expected this response.

“I,” she said loftily, “am writing a Colorado fishing blog for beginners. And these are my work tools.”

But Fishergarten might as well have been talking to a trout. By the end of the session, it was clear as Stren that the IRS would never see the light of those now-lost deductions.

She trawled one last time: “What about a 2014 Toyota RAV4 LE?”

“Time to go,” he said. “Please pay on the way out. And by the way, make sure you don’t even think about using my name in a blog.”

Wow. Whiny. Like he would rate mention.

Instead, let’s look at what we’re angling for here and what we want to tackle. Basically, with this blog, we seek to have fun and talk about learning to fish, whatever that looks like. We aren’t fancy, and Fishergarten is a rank rookie.

“Why ‘Fishergarten’?” asked our beloved FisherSpouse.

“Because after millennia of fisherpersons sitting around campfires with beverage- and

FisherSpouse

possibly smoke-induced name calling, there aren’t many words that haven’t been taken, domained, handled or trademarked,” Fishergarten explained. “This is a happy blend of words that, we hope, implies ‘fishing novice’ and violates no legal ownerships.”

“Just don’t use my name or photo in that thing,” FisherSpouse said. Or maybe technically, he said, “Don’t use any identifiable photos.” Fishergarten can’t quite remember.

In any case, Fishergarten intends to meet and report on three goals in this blog. We will:

• Learn the basics of fishing; 
• Fish every Colorado reservoir with 40,000 acre feet of water or more within the next two years; and
• Visit many restaurants in search of Colorado’s best chili relleno.

“Really, Mom? That’s your life goal?” asked NonFisherSon. NonFisherSon does not fish. “I’d rather watch DOS scroll,” he said. Probably he gets a lot of yuks with that at his high-tech management job. Still, Fishergarten realized she was casting into the wind. Any reasoning would plunk short and sink. “It is fun, and I like chili rellenos,” Fishergarten finally said.

            “Just don’t use my name in that blog,” he said. “Now here, have a domestic beer.”

            So, FisherFriends, let’s have some fun. Join us or even help us as Fishergarten starts to navigate the world of Colorado fishing. We want to learn and in our subtle way, to report back on that learning.

            Ready? Then let’s fish.