Wild Fish Wild Places Looks Back on ICAST
Wild Fish Wild Places 01.29.13
Orlando in mid-July was the setting for this year’s ICAST Convention and since I had a long standing arrangement for Team Wild Fish to film a couple of episodes for Season 3 of Wild Fish Wild Places down at Marco Island with good friend Captain Wright Taylor of Fly Wright Charters, we decided to bring the cameras to ICAST 2012 to film some of the stand-out, innovative products that caught our eye during this annual fishing tackle showcase.
Also, our buddies at Fishing Florida Radio had invited Denis and myself to join the three amigos–Steve Chapman, Boodreaux and Capt. Mike Ortego on their popular Saturday morning radio show during our visit. I just knew we were going to have a lot of laughs on this trip!
As the Wild Fish crew was doing “the rounds” of the endess booths and displays, Savage Gear Lures caught our attention and drew us in like a pike to a live-bait.
Originally started by a Dane, Mads Grosell, Savage Gear develop and manufacture some of the best action, big fish lures around. They have a fantastic range suitable for most predatory fish, all with their own unique action and made strong and durable. Go and take a look on www.savage-gear.com and be blown away by their incredible lures.
One of the most impressive new additions to the array of bags and tackle totes is the Wild River Tackle Tek “Rogue” Bag by CLC. CLC have been making bags and holdalls for the hardware sector for more than thirty years and their new range of tackle bags are probably the best that I have come across yet. The workmanship is first class. However, it is when you open the cover on the Rogue model that the true innovation and build quality is revealed. Here there is an iPod dock and speakers located on the front, along with a rechargeable battery pack in the base. I was left with the lasting impression from this innovative line of tackle totes that their construction is of the highest standard, using the best materials and components, in addition to the clever use of a sound system and internal lighting for the “nocturnal nut buckets” among our ranks! Visit www.gowildriver.com to see their superb range of gear.
Glacier Glove is a brand that has been around now for more than thirty years, designing, innovating and manufacturing high performance gloves for the outdoors enthusiast. I bought my first pair of Glacier neoprene fishing gloves back in 1993 from a small fishing tackle store in the south of England! I still have these wonderful gloves in my boathouse where they have been retired from service for some time now due to the impressive improvements in design, materials and manufacturing processes allowing for greater dexterity, thermal values and overall foul weather protection. The more recent Glacier Gloves product lines that come from this Nevada family business are suitable for 21st century needs. I use their sun gloves all the time to protect my hands from the very damaging UVA and UVB rays that we are all now so aware of. Go take a look at their amazing range of gloves, hats and other really great gear at www.glacierglove.com.
Innovation, invention and dedication are traits that characterize Jeff Dahl, the inventor of Loop Rope, one of the best new products that I believe should be in every home, car, boat, farm and indeed every work place. They are the one and only solution to tie-downs, made simple. Just take a look at what you can do with a Loop Rope to make life easier.
I just love this simple and versatile tie-down system, so much so, mine are in constant use.
John BooDreaux Baumann of Fishing Florida Radio Show suggested we take a look at a range of products from a company called LifeProof. Lifeproof make a range of water proof and shock proof cases for iPhones and iPads. Denis and I volunteered to ‘road test’ these extremely practical and robust waterproof cases in the Gore-Tex storm simulator booth! We accompanied Angel King, LifeProof’s Director of Events into the booth along with some demo cases containing an iPhone 4 and iPad 2 in simulated conditions that I would describe as akin to being locked into a rather tall, washing-machine on the ’heavily soiled’ programme!
The powerful water jets came at us from every angle and direction, giving our borrowed protective suits a thorough soaking. All the while Angel and Denis were able to surf the net with the two devices safely cocooned in their smart LifeProof cases! I started laughing as the jets of water drummed on my hood and shoulders and momentarily thought I would drown such was the force of water spraying into my face! Great fun!
Lifeproof cases are a must-have for all iPhone and iPad owners. This is a really practical product. Take a look on www.lifeproof.com at these amazing and sturdy cases.
Our three hour stint on Fishing Florida Radio with Steve Chapman, Capt. Mike and BooDreaux was a laugh from start to finish and our time on-air just flew by! Do yourselves a favour and catch up with the Three Amigos on www.fishingfloridaradio.com and listen back to their Podcasts which I can assure you are pure entertainment! After the show, we all went for a leisurely breakfast with Les, our minder, who had kindly chauffeured us to the studio at 5:30 that morning.
Check back later in the week for the rest of our excursion to Florida!
FISH AND FISHING. TWO WORDS HAVING A MYRIAD OF MEANINGS TO A MYRIAD OF PEOPLES. TO FISH FOR FOOD, FOR LIFE, FOR SURVIVAL; OR TO FISH FOR FUN, FOR SPORT, FOR MONEY.
When, almost 5,000 years ago in China, man first attached a hook and line to a bamboo rod to catch carp a little further from the river’s edge, little did he know that this creation would evolve into an industry which at the early part of this, the twenty-first century, is worth over $108 billion annually to the US economy in terms of sport fishing alone!
The variety of fish species is infinite. From cold water inhabitants such as members of the Salmonidae family, to warm water, tropical dwellers like the Cichlids. From the gigantic Tarpon of the Florida Keys to the gentler Arctic Charr spectacularly attired in their vivid courtship colors in the frigid rivers and streams of the arctic tundra. Take the celebrated Coelacanth, over three hundred million years old and still found today in the warm seas of the Indian Ocean around Madagascar, or the seemingly ubiquitous Golden Orfe, or the goldfish, which completes endless circuits in so many glass bowls in family homes in every corner of the world.
In this series, we will seek out great predatory fish. Fish that are much revered, fish that strike terror at the very mention of their name and fish that are the staple diet of many peoples subsisting along the shorelines and riverbanks of the great waters we will visit during our odyssey. Positioned at the very top of the food chain, these apex predators reign supreme in their own domain, be it mighty river, great lake or ocean.
Our quest will take us across cultures and continents to exotic locations of immense beauty and wealth as well as lands poleaxed by poverty. We will explore not just these wild and wonderful places, but the significance of our target species to the different groupings of peoples in terms of social, economic and cultural values.
Our travels in search of extraordinary predators will take us from the cold, unforgiving waters of the West of Ireland to the steaming jungle swamps of India. From the frozen, pristine wilderness of the Canadian subarctic to the sun-baked backwaters of Northern Australia. This will be a series of contrasts and comparisons where we will meet people who live to fish and people who fish to live.
