I’m always perusing outdoor catalogs or wandering the aisles of sporting goods stores checking out the selection of new or improved hunting and fishing gear. If there’s a piece of equipment that can make an outing more comfortable or safer, I want to try it. Any product that can increase my enjoyment of a sport or perhaps improve my success, I’m going to buy it. And when an item really proves to be outstanding, I make sure to tell all my friends so they can take advantage of it as well.
Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time sitting in blinds or stands waiting for waterfowl, deer, bear, turkey and several other species of wild game. Often my seat has been a hard board, log or tree stump and frequently it’s been wet, cold or snow covered, which doesn’t matter after the first hour because I can’t feel my rear end any more. Uncomfortable seats lead to hunter’s shifting position to relieve posterior pressure and numbness, and motion while on stand alerts game to your position.
I’ve tried boat cushions, foam pads, pellet filled hot seats and a couple of other products with moderate success, and then I used a Fatboy cushion produced by Hunt Comfort for spring turkey hunting. Regardless of how hard, rocky or uneven the ground was, the Fatboy offered complete relief and a soft seat that didn’t lead to the usual numbness or discomfort, and I sat for up to three hours without the need to shift position at all.
Hunt Comfort boasts that their cushions are “the best seat in the woods,” and from personal experience with Fatboy and Fatboy Lite cushions, it’s like having an easy chair along on the outing. These 16 x 14 x 3-inch seats are comprised of two layers of special high resiliency foam around a one-inch central contact tier of Intelligel. This I-Core combination absorbs and distributes pressure over the entire cushion to assure comfort over long periods of immobility. A heavy weight, Teflon-coated camouflage cover assures the cushion is waterproof, breathable and quiet, yet durable under the harshest conditions.
Hunt Comfort’s Fatboy sells for $60, check them out on line at www.huntcomfort.com or call toll free 1-888-757-3232 to order or get more information. Having used my Fatboy cushion for turkey hunting and as a padded canoe seat during spring trolling, it will certainly be going with me to the duck blind as well as the bear and deer stands. It really is the best seat in the woods.
Rhine Reel
Since I was a youngster, an open-face spinning reel was my equipment of choice for bait and lure casting. My cousin Mike Wallace always used a closed-face bait casting reel, and while I went through half a dozen models of spinning reels, Mike kept casting the same rod and reel combo he’d owned for 40 years with nary a malfunction. Last summer I took the plunge and bought my first spin-cast reel, a Rhino RSC 3 built by Zebco.
Since push button spin cast rigs have the rod inverted with the reel sitting on top of the handle, just the opposite of a spinning outfit, it took a bit of getting used to. But by the second bass fishing trip I was ignoring my open-face spinning combos for the smooth casting Rhino. For the technical minded, this reel features four steel ball bearings, solid brass helicon-cut worn drive gear, auto bait alert, a quad-ramp rollerball drag system, dual ceramic pick-up pins with a triple cam and a flexible perma-sealed cast release. All of these innovations are housed in a machine-forged aircraft aluminum body with a classic appearance, and the reel comes pre-spooled with 12-pound test monofilament. That’s a lot of reel for only $25.
Rhino reels are pretty to look at, but unbelievably durable, they cast long and smooth every time and harbor a drag that really takes the fight to the fish. Check out this high quality low cost reel at www.zebco.com or telephone 1-800-588-9030 to locate your nearest dealer or to get more info on Zebco products.
That’s a Line
Since I began fly casting as a teenager, I’ve used only two brands of fly lines, mostly because they were well known brands and that’s what was available at local stores. During my annual tarpon fishing trip to Florida last year, my guide noted some wear on my fly line and suggested a new line was in order. He suggested I purchase a RIO camo-tip floating tarpon taper. I’d never even heard of RIO lines, but my guide spends six months a year guiding saltwater trips for tarpon, bonefish and snook; and six month in Montana guiding sports for brown, rainbow and cutthroat trout. He knows fly lines!
By mid-summer I’d learned a lot about RIO lines, a company based in the heart of western trout angling, Idaho Falls. I was also casting two of their specialty lines, one for trout and another for Atlantic salmon. RIO fly lines slide through the rod guides as slick as rainwater through a gutter, with minimal wrist and arm labor, and the lines float high and lift from the water surface with little effort. It’s difficult to believe until you actually cast a RIO line.
RIO is already the number one producer of leaders and tippet material in the U.S. and their fly line sales are growing by leaps and bounds. After years of research and development with an array of exotic compounds, RIO technicians finally produced an element six times more buoyant that any product used on competitors lines. Named Agent X, this compound used a special process call Fusion Technology to bind the line layers together yielding a perfect density to float or sink, depending on the line, and to cast as if the line were greased.
RIO produces a vast selection of floating, sink-tip and full sinking lines along with dozens of weather, water and fish-specific fly lines with prices ranging from $50 to $60. Check out the selection and learn more about Agent X line design at www.rioproducts.com or call 208-524-7760 for person-to-person questions. Once you feel the coating on these lines, the urge to cast one is overwhelming; and once you cast a RIO line for a few minutes, you will be hooked as quickly as the fish.
Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time sitting in blinds or stands waiting for waterfowl, deer, bear, turkey and several other species of wild game. Often my seat has been a hard board, log or tree stump and frequently it’s been wet, cold or snow covered, which doesn’t matter after the first hour because I can’t feel my rear end any more. Uncomfortable seats lead to hunter’s shifting position to relieve posterior pressure and numbness, and motion while on stand alerts game to your position.
I’ve tried boat cushions, foam pads, pellet filled hot seats and a couple of other products with moderate success, and then I used a Fatboy cushion produced by Hunt Comfort for spring turkey hunting. Regardless of how hard, rocky or uneven the ground was, the Fatboy offered complete relief and a soft seat that didn’t lead to the usual numbness or discomfort, and I sat for up to three hours without the need to shift position at all.
Hunt Comfort boasts that their cushions are “the best seat in the woods,” and from personal experience with Fatboy and Fatboy Lite cushions, it’s like having an easy chair along on the outing. These 16 x 14 x 3-inch seats are comprised of two layers of special high resiliency foam around a one-inch central contact tier of Intelligel. This I-Core combination absorbs and distributes pressure over the entire cushion to assure comfort over long periods of immobility. A heavy weight, Teflon-coated camouflage cover assures the cushion is waterproof, breathable and quiet, yet durable under the harshest conditions.
Hunt Comfort’s Fatboy sells for $60, check them out on line at www.huntcomfort.com or call toll free 1-888-757-3232 to order or get more information. Having used my Fatboy cushion for turkey hunting and as a padded canoe seat during spring trolling, it will certainly be going with me to the duck blind as well as the bear and deer stands. It really is the best seat in the woods.
Rhine Reel
Since I was a youngster, an open-face spinning reel was my equipment of choice for bait and lure casting. My cousin Mike Wallace always used a closed-face bait casting reel, and while I went through half a dozen models of spinning reels, Mike kept casting the same rod and reel combo he’d owned for 40 years with nary a malfunction. Last summer I took the plunge and bought my first spin-cast reel, a Rhino RSC 3 built by Zebco.
Since push button spin cast rigs have the rod inverted with the reel sitting on top of the handle, just the opposite of a spinning outfit, it took a bit of getting used to. But by the second bass fishing trip I was ignoring my open-face spinning combos for the smooth casting Rhino. For the technical minded, this reel features four steel ball bearings, solid brass helicon-cut worn drive gear, auto bait alert, a quad-ramp rollerball drag system, dual ceramic pick-up pins with a triple cam and a flexible perma-sealed cast release. All of these innovations are housed in a machine-forged aircraft aluminum body with a classic appearance, and the reel comes pre-spooled with 12-pound test monofilament. That’s a lot of reel for only $25.
Rhino reels are pretty to look at, but unbelievably durable, they cast long and smooth every time and harbor a drag that really takes the fight to the fish. Check out this high quality low cost reel at www.zebco.com or telephone 1-800-588-9030 to locate your nearest dealer or to get more info on Zebco products.
That’s a Line
Since I began fly casting as a teenager, I’ve used only two brands of fly lines, mostly because they were well known brands and that’s what was available at local stores. During my annual tarpon fishing trip to Florida last year, my guide noted some wear on my fly line and suggested a new line was in order. He suggested I purchase a RIO camo-tip floating tarpon taper. I’d never even heard of RIO lines, but my guide spends six months a year guiding saltwater trips for tarpon, bonefish and snook; and six month in Montana guiding sports for brown, rainbow and cutthroat trout. He knows fly lines!
By mid-summer I’d learned a lot about RIO lines, a company based in the heart of western trout angling, Idaho Falls. I was also casting two of their specialty lines, one for trout and another for Atlantic salmon. RIO fly lines slide through the rod guides as slick as rainwater through a gutter, with minimal wrist and arm labor, and the lines float high and lift from the water surface with little effort. It’s difficult to believe until you actually cast a RIO line.
RIO is already the number one producer of leaders and tippet material in the U.S. and their fly line sales are growing by leaps and bounds. After years of research and development with an array of exotic compounds, RIO technicians finally produced an element six times more buoyant that any product used on competitors lines. Named Agent X, this compound used a special process call Fusion Technology to bind the line layers together yielding a perfect density to float or sink, depending on the line, and to cast as if the line were greased.
RIO produces a vast selection of floating, sink-tip and full sinking lines along with dozens of weather, water and fish-specific fly lines with prices ranging from $50 to $60. Check out the selection and learn more about Agent X line design at www.rioproducts.com or call 208-524-7760 for person-to-person questions. Once you feel the coating on these lines, the urge to cast one is overwhelming; and once you cast a RIO line for a few minutes, you will be hooked as quickly as the fish.
