Revolutionary fishing gadgets hard to come by anymore

Every year I travel to the American Sportfishing Show’s annual trade convention in Las Vegas thinking that I will find the next great fishing invention that will make it easier to catch fish.

And while the hundreds of exhibitors at the show — from the biggest manufacturers to the little guys — are showing what is new in their product line, each year I come away realizing that it is definitely difficult to come up with something that is revolutionary.

Oh, every year there are new products. In fact, in an area the size of a small house, the ASA people set up a “new product showcase” at the show where all of the new items that will be on sale to the anglers of the world are on display. But as I wandered through the showcase last week looking at the dozens of new fishing rods, reels, lures and other accessories, I came away realizing just how tough it is to design something that is cutting edge and revolutionary.

Sure, many of the new products are improvements on existing fishing tackle, but there weren’t many products that stood out as all new.

For instance, Woodland, Wash., rod manufacturer Lamiglas introduced some 28 new models at the show this year, including two new fast-action spin rods for salmon and steelhead. They are nice rods for sure, but will you catch more fish using them? I know one thing: they sure are great looking and feel good in your hand.

The same is true with the new models of fishing reels introduced at the show. Most look very similar to the models already out there. In fact, the average angler would never know the difference. But all claim some sort of improvement such as smoother drags and more.

You wouldn’t think there would need to be any improvements to landing nets. A net is a net right? But Frabill is introducing more models that slide out of the handle for ease of storage. And a new company, Leverage Landing Net, introduced a model that folds up fairly small, and when extended includes an arm support that fits on your lower arm to help support the net. This might be handy when landing a fish one-handed if you were fishing alone, but the jury is still out as to just how effective and important the support would be most other times.

There were a couple of new products introduced at the show last week that were built around knots. Anglers are always tying knots. You need a good knot to tie your lure or hook to the line.

A Finnish company called Spinmade introduced a new knot-tying tool at this year’s show. The tool, called the Click2knot, supposedly allows anyone, young or old, novice or journeyman, to tie a perfect clinch knot in seconds, even with cold hands.

If the little gadget works like it shows on their website, it might be something a person wants to have along on those cold days on the river. According to the demonstration all you do is place the line tie loop of your lure or hook in the holder at the end of the little devise, stick the end of your line in another hole and click the handle six times. The knot is then tied and all you have to do is pull it tight. I didn’t get a chance to try it at the show, but it looks like it might work on some lures and hooks.

And there is a new hook design out there that includes a tiny nodule on the shaft of the hook that allows line to be wrapped around it eliminating the need for a knot altogether. Called the easy2hook “no-knot” fishing hook, the hook might work just great, but I believe that most anglers will not want to rely on a small bump on a hook to hold the line when a big fish hits. We’ll see.

The item I got a little bit excited about, and actually purchased at the show, was a new fillet board that is very simple in its design but should work well for the bigger fish we catch around here. The board incorporates a removable spike at one end that is large and sturdy enough to secure a salmon, steelhead or other bigger fish while filleting it. The board has a couple of stations for holding fillet knives and is portable enough to remove and wash thoroughly.

The board, and another handy little portable fillet tool that hooks to a board or table to hold a fish, are made by Quick Fillet Tools out of Michigan.

Of course there were dozens of new colors of existing lures introduced at the show, some of which I look forward to using, and our own Yakima Bait Company introduced a new steelhead jig, with super strong Owner hooks, called the Maxi Jig that should be productive and fun to try.

Watch for all of these, and many more new products at the local tackle shops in the upcoming months. Will you catch more fish because of them? I guess we’ll have to try them and see.
• Rob Phillips is a freelance outdoor writer and partner in the advertising firm of Smith, Phillips & DiPietro. He can be reached at rwphillips@spdadvertising.com.