Gear: Newer, Better, Stronger Whatever happened to a cane pole and a worm?   ...for more articles about Alaska fishing subscribe to Fish Alaska Magazine!

Fallen into the X-Files of fishing gear? Fish Alaska will attempt to assist you in wading through the plethora of new gear that awaits the unsuspecting angler.

I tend to take great amusement from most of the technological insanity that surrounds the angling industry. Gearing up for a fishing trip used to be a simple affair. You went to your local tackle shop and got what you needed—I’d say the basics, but it all seemed to be basic—and simply stalked your favorite stretch of water. In the Tackle-land of yesterday, it was only out upon the ramparts of civilization—across the Divide in the Wild West of fishing paraphernalia—that folks were consumed by a frenzy of finely tuned gear and narrow applications. Today, though, techno-speak has replaced the fish tale in our angling vocabularies. You’re just as likely to hear a fishing crony stretch the length of a cast as you are to hear him add an inch or seven to his catch. Everyone is Jim Bridger. Armed with Gore-Tex and graphite, we’ve eclipsed the horizon, accepted the mantle of exploration, and tamed the frontier.

Aside from the miles of mass-produced products we find in national chain stores (for crying out loud), almost every single aspect of fishing tackle has been refined to a nuance previously reserved for NASCAR racing teams and NASA engineers. We’re all specialists now. And if you’re one of the last remaining holdouts, the manufacturers have plans for you.

Rare is the rod that even half-heartedly makes a claim towards “do-it-all” angling. There’re mooch rods, back-bouncing rods, and titanium drift rods. Fly fishers lucky enough to know the exact weight and length of the tool they wish to employ must also decide between actions ranging from molasses to triple-charged turbo fast. I’m thinking some of these rods even cast themselves. There’s anodized this and composite polymer that and enough versions of the fly reel—theoretically as simple a product as a person could find—that a prospective angler might just forgo deciphering the tackle aisle and instead decide to troll for lawn care implements.

And forgetting the cornucopia of equipment options for a moment, there are always the ads to further baffle the less-than-obsessive mind. I love these billboards of illusion the industry foists on us all-too-eager consumers. The cobalt blue skies, the pristine streams babbling through an immaculate wilderness setting, maybe a trout leaping at the end of some tailored angler’s line: read enough of these and like Special Agent Fox Mulder, you too can believe.

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