Yakass Home
Do, Die or Product Failure
- Category: Kayak fishing accessories
- Published on Thursday, 27 May 2010 18:17
- Written by Dan
I'd love to submit an article that was bright and cheery but I'm continually trashing yak fishing related products and it's gone from the absurd to the ridiculously annoying. Fair enough, my favorite $350 custom snapper stick that I busted on Monday was due to a lapse in concentration when I high sticked during a particularly awkward situation that happened about 15 minutes after Mr reel blew up. When the reel handle started crunching and ground to a halt at the pause following the second run of a stonker jewfish, there were two options, lock the drag and deliberately bust off or manually reclaim the braid and hope to land the fish. Obviously I chose the latter which involved the painstaking method of manually rotating the spool to reload the line. (Try this at home people because its gotta be among the dumbest ways to land a fish.)
With the final 25 metres of line somehow still attached to a 20kg+ jewfish and countless inch by inch spool rotations over at least 15 minutes, the jewfish decided to take another run. I lifted the rod tip, impatiently locked up the spool and it was all over. That one little pop of carbon composite cost me the most incredible snapper stick I could ever wish to own. What's worse, I can only blame myself.
So what happened when 30 minutes later I have a nice snapper swimming yakside ready for that perfect photo opportunity? I don't know but I switch on the "waterproof" Pentax Optio W60, dip it in the drink, take a pic, check the image and then watch the beginnings of condensation as it engulfs the viewing screen.
An hour later a full bed of foggy water has coated the internal glass and it brings back vivid memories of my last "waterproof" Pentax camera, my "waterproof" Olympus camera, four handheld GPS units, three fishfinders, two mobile phones, a "waterproof" Aldi headcam and the Panasonic SW-20 video camera that all ended up in the dead electric graveyard.
Looking at my current Garmin 76CS GPS, I can tell the end is near. The days of automatically transferring 1st class snapper points to my pewter via USB are long gone. Even when wrapped and sealed in a ziplock bag, little gems of H20 continue to find their way to the LCD. My head is spinning with rage but today I went to Aldi and forked out $119 on a "waterproof" camera because I need a "waterproof" camera and can't justify spending $250 or more on big ticket electrics that simply can't be trusted.
And what of the fishing tackle? Well, Mr Ebay got his first $46 bucks on a new snapper rod and a 3000 reel to replace about $1300 worth tackle that's been unwillingly executed through my yak fishing exploits in the last 12 months. I'd seriously love to keep on testing the limits of high end fishing related bling but when it costs me thousands of dollars, I don't think I can do it anymore.
For a lot of us, yak fishing is a massive part of our life and every single paddle or pedal stroke costs money. The benefits we get out of this activity surpass all financial losses but when our prized gear is constantly dying on the yak, it makes you feel pretty jaded about the stuff you want to buy. If you're highly meticulous about the way you maintain your gear and product failures continue to occur, the act of getting seriously annoyed is overwhelmingly logical.
1 hour ago
