I'm a little confused by this device. Don't you still need a rod and reel to cast or troll with it, or are you suggesting that for small emergency kit purposes you could just toss this out like a rock with the other end of the line in your hand?
Glenn, both, or either. With a small rod & reel or by hand.
Trolling with a hand line (from a tandem canoe?) would not require a cast, just let the line out. The same if fishing in river current, in a spot where you can let out the line floating mid-stream and not tangled against the bank.
But lake fishing it is hard to cast a hand line very far, and even with a compact rod and reel it is hard to get much distance with just a fly or a grasshopper on a hook. You can use split shot or sinkers for weight, but then you have to keep things from tangling on the bottom.
The adjust-a-bubble floats even when near fully filled with water and provides enough weight to sling a fly or hook out quite a ways.
We had a cheap spinning reel bite the dust unrepairably on one trip and I ended up casting monofilament line by twirling it overhead and letting go lasso style. With some water in the bobber I could still fling it a good distance, and since the hook wasn’t sinker diving towards the bottom I could wind up the line slowly and incrementally on the way back in.
The tactile feel of a fish on line in hand is actually more exciting than using a rod and reel, more of a direct connection between you and the fish.
I can admittedly be a very lazy fisherman, and am not averse to simply casting out a fly or grasshopper on a hook and then paying little attention while I read a book on the bank. “Oh, hummm, where did the bobber go? I better check my line”
That is a good way to get bait stripped, and obviously reduces setting the hook to pure fish-hungry luck. It is also a good way to have to keep undersized fish that have swallowed the hook.
Reeling or winding the line back in is decidedly more effective, both to keep the bait or lure moving and to set a strike, so throwing a fly or hook out10 feet from the bank kinda sucks in a repetitive motion timeline.
I had opportunity to watch trout strike at a fly and it was fascinating.
I was on a backpacking trip in Glacier NP with a complete fishing novice who lived in Montana. Not that I am any shakes of an angler. We hiked up and went off from camp to fish a high lake, where my companion walked around to the far side to try his luck. Soon after we had the following shouted conversation:
“Mike, there’s 20 or 30 of the biggest fish I’ve ever seen over here”
“Over where?”
“Over by the big rock”
“There is nothing
but big rocks around here dammit. I’ll come find you”
I found him alright. He was perched atop a 20 foot tall vertical cliff on the water’s edge, dangling a line straight down like he was fishing off a bridge. I hiked up to see what he was talking about and he was right, there were a couple dozen of the biggest trout I have ever seen, schooled up listlessly at the base of the cliff where the breeze was collecting downed buglife.
I went back down to the base to try casting out to them. The cast was about at the limit of the distance I could achieve with my cheap rod and reel, even with the water filled bobber. He stayed up top to see what happened.
What happened was that if I could manage a cast out beyond the cluster of trout and slowly reel the fly through them a chain reaction would sometimes take place. His color commentary from up top was so interesting I had to switch places so I could see for myself.
Casting out and reeling through the fish cluster sometimes nothing would happen. Nary a fish would seem to notice. But sometimes one fish would make a little move towards the fly, the next nearby fish in line would make a bigger move and finally one would strike. If none of them ever moved nothing would happen, but as soon as one made even a slight movement the chain reaction was a near guarantee of a strike.
Again, the color commentary was as much fun as catching the fish. “Ok, one moved, another, hesgoingforit STRIKE!
Postscript. We did well, and ate a mess of fresh trout for dinner. We did well the next day and caught our limit to clean and take back to his place. We did so well that it was getting on towards dusk before we packed camp to hike out.
We hiked out in the dark. In autumn bear country. With fishy trout fillets in our packs. I was certain that every dark clump of bushes along the trail was a bear. Bear bells on our bootlaces, loud conversation, reconsideration of a possible deity; it was an added element of excitement I could have done without.
Postscript II. My companion on the trip with the failed reel was the calmest, quietest and most even keeled guy I have ever known. We did two week trips where we didn’t share 50 words a day, it was all knowing nods and looks.
He was using that reel and the first I knew he was having trouble was when he suddenly bellowed a very uncharacteristic “YOU CHEAP effing PIECE OF crap!” We both tried to field repair that reel and I came to the same conclusion.
I was so disgusted with that failed reel that I never wanted to see it again, and didn’t even want to sully the trash with it. I mailed it back to the manufacturer with a note that read simply “This is a cheap effing piece of crap”.
They did not send me a replacement reel, for which I was grateful.
I’m not really a much of a fisherman, which is probably a good application for that adjust-a-bubble bobber. For flinging line off some rudimentary hand device it would be ideal. If I can only hand cast the line out 10 feet I’d rather not have to wind it back in too quickly.
See also throw it out there and read a book.
The scenario is a canoeist on a wilderness trip who has lost or run out of all his food, but is otherwise healthy and has all his equipment. He has no electronic distress signal or gun. He can paddle to his his destination or civilization, but it is many days or weeks away. He has water all around, on which he is paddling. What he needs is food. Fish are the obvious source.
Foraging could make sense, too, but that takes ethnobotanical knowledge and may simply not be available in river valleys relatively barren of vegetation.
In that guise I have to agree with LatremoreJ and others. Running out of food and days or weeks away from a safe exit, the more time spent with a fishing line in hand is the less time spent paddling out. Trolling while paddling maybe.
A small gill net would take up little space or weight and require no fishing-line-in-the-water oversight.while you were on a double portage or setting up camp. Leave it out overnight.
Same for some wire to make snares. Snares are quick and easy to make, set them and check at dusk and the next morning. The best success I have had with snares was catching squirrels. For study skins, not for fending off starvation.
Prop a log up at a 45 against a squirrely tree. Tie the snare loop part way up atop the log, high enough to leave some strangle dangle wire. Admittedly I baited the log with a couple dabs of peanut butter.
The strangling squirrel flailing at the end of the wire was awful to see, so I thumped them in the head with a stick.
Gill net and some wire would be more efficient use of time than sitting by the water fishing.
If you were the second coming of Euell Gibbons foraging might be helpful, but that requires a steeper learning curve.
The taste reminds me of wild hickory nuts (only folks old enough to have seen television ads in the early 70’s will get that).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJMIu18I8Y
I heard Gibbons give a presentation about foraging wild foods. Overwrought mothers complained to Post Foods that Gibbons was encouraging their children to eat potentially poisonous berries, and Post forced Gibbon to do an explanation apology tour.
I have never seen a speaker so obviously pissed off and fed up take the stage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euell_Gibbons
