Product Review: The Fishing Tree Adventure Gloves

If you are pretty observant you might have noticed I have started wearing fishing gloves.  Out of the blue I was asked by the people of The Fishing Tree if I would like to do a review of their gloves.  I had been thinking about getting a pair to wear from someone and the chance to get a free pair to review sounded just great.

I received them about a month ago.  Here is the product description from Amazon:

Multi-use fingerless gloves that keep sensitive hands looking younger, help stop early aging and protect against skin cancer spots.

UPF (Ultraviolet Protection Factor) is the measure of how well fabric blocks ultra violet radiation. A UPF rating of 50+ is the highest possible rating, which is exactly what the SGS experts have verified for these gloves. The material blocks 49/50ths or 98% of UV radiation. UPF is like SPF, which is the measurement used for sunblock creams.

Use for any outdoor environment. Our product provides protection but allows full maneuverability. The angler retains unrestricted use of fingers which is important with work like tying tippets or stripping trout fly lines (and retain the ‘feel’ of a nibble on the line).

Double-stitched seams add strength and they do not fall apart after a couple of uses or after a wash.

Machine washable so use them for fish handling and cleaning or other grubby jobs. Velcro wrist straps adjusts to any size wrist. This lightweight gear bought directly from us is fully supported and comes with our 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Unisex sizing. Get the right size at the start and take time to measure your hand before ordering.

Building on our highly successful first version, the new style is a more snug fit so you can easily forget you have these on.

Add our tested and verified gloves to the cart! Professionally packaged, they make an ideal accessory or gift for men or women.

The manufacturer's warranty is only provided by authorized resellers - The Fishing Tree and Soloportis.

Sizing: Measure round the widest part of the palm, above the thumb and below the little finger. That total length measurement is the size you need to refer to (because of the stretchy fit, if you are in doubt, GO for a BIGGER rather than smaller size):

XS 6.5 – 7.5 inches

S 7.5 – 8.75 inches

M 8.75 – 9.0 inches

L 9.0 – 9.50 inches

I got the small size, which fit my little hands perfectly.  They are comfortable and for the most part I barely notice I'm wearing them.  They helped to keep my hands a little bit warmer then they would otherwise have been in the cold.  If I dip them in the water they help to keep my hands cool.  However, they do seem to become a bit slippery when wet.

(Click to enlarge)

The spandex is showing some wear, but that is to be expected because I put them under the gill covers on some pike and walleye.  They have helped to keep my hands a little less bloody when handling those fish.  The palms seem to be holding up rather well.

Overall I am satisfied with them.

They can be purchased at Amazon.

Big Bass & Breaking in My New St. Croix 7' H

20" Mad Maxx Frog

All it takes is one bite to turn an extremely mediocre morning into a great one.  Today I got that bite.  She hit the "Big Sexy" and fortunately didn't take me into the pads like it could have.  She was barely hooked.

To that point in the morning, a good hour and a half into fishing, I missed a jumper and a toothy on the Stanley Phantom and got one 14.5" jumper on a watermelon/red Tonka Tackle Craw Tube.

In the picture you can see my new and vastly improved St. Croix Avid 7' Heavy.  It's lighter than the previous rod and actually loads a little bit when I cast, which the previous rod that was a total broomstick did not really do.  Casting distance is improved and I can now  use it for pitching, which the previous rod didn't do well at all.  It's not quite as powerful as the previous rod, but I'll take that trade off as it still has plenty of power.  I also think it's gonna be quite a bit more sensitive, but I really didn't get enough bites to gauge that very well.  Overall I'm very impressed.

Note- My previous Avid 7' Heavy was a pre-IPC technology rod.

That was all I got at the Grumpy Old Man Hole this morning.  I got a couple of nice fish (16",15") on the Horny Toad at the Culvert and got a total dink at the Inlet on Sullivan on a black/blue Tonka Tackle Craw Tube.  That was it.  I fished from 5:45 to 9AM.  Quite a change from the past two morning where I caught a bunch of small fish.

Yesterday Morning
2 Days Ago

Product Spotlight: Fish Face Goods T Shirts

I got an email from Troy Thomas of Fish Face Goods asking if I would do a product review of his hunting, fishing, and outdoor themed shirts. I was open to the idea, but I'm not sure how you do a review of a T-Shirt so I'm calling this a "Product Spotlight" instead.

I went to their website http://www.fishface.com/ and selected the current design I liked the most which was their "gone thinking" T. The shirt arrived just a few days after letting Troy know my choice.

Here is the design on the front:

I would say they are going more for hip than billboard because the design isn't all that big.


Here is the company logo, which is on the upper back of the shirt.

The T's are 6.1 oz., Gildan (a couple designs are on Anvil) 100% cotton, preshrunk (Heather Grey: 90% cotton/10% polyester). Seamless double-needle collar; taped neck and shoulders; double-needle sleeve and bottom hems.

Fish Face currently has more than a two dozen designs in their Men's line up. They have actually added a couple since I put in my order about 2 weeks ago. They also have stuff for women and kids. I think their Women's designs are all worth a look. They also do their designs on long sleeves, sweatshirts and ball caps.

The T-Shirts run $18.95, Long Sleeves $24.95, Sweatshirts $31.95, and Ball Caps $18.95. If you are looking for something unique and stylish or for a great gift, take a look at what Fish Face Goods has to offer.

As a bonus they included this little bumper sticker:

I don't see these bumper stickers anywhere on the website.

They have a Fish Face Goods Facebook Page, so go "Like" that to get the latest Fish Face news and design releases.

Cry (Berkley) Havoc and Let Slip An OBN Product Review

I entered and was randomly selected by the Outdoor Blogger Network to do a product review on four Berkley Havoc baits.

If you were anywhere near the Bassmaster Classic this past February no doubt you heard about the new economy priced Berkley Havoc Plastics. If you weren't paying attention to the Classic and don't care about professional bass fishing maybe you haven't heard about them. For instance I am not aware of a store in my area in Central Minnesota that is carrying them Spring.

The four baits I received to review are the Bobby Lane designed Craw Fatty™, Gary Klein designed The Deuce™, Skeet Reese designed Pit Boss™, and the Mike Iaconelli designed Devil Spear™. These were the four baits rolled out for the Bassmaster Classic and as you can tell from the previous sentence Berkley B.A.S.S. Elite Series Pro Staff are being given credit for inspiring the designs of each bait. Could be marketing hype or could be the truth, I don't think it matters.

I don't believe the baits are suppose to be "scented" but a couple of reviews about the baits I've read suggested it smells somewhat like an old Powerbait formula. I guess I can't make up my mind if that is the case or not. If it does, the scent isn't very strong. The plastic on all the baits is soft, but not so much so that I would call it a wimpy weak formula thus the plastic is reasonably durable.

I will do my reviews in order of preference for the baits:

The Mike Iaconelli designed Devil Spear™.
The Devil Spear has to be the most original bait of this crop. The Devil Spear is 4 inches long and a serious piece of plastic that comes in at least 10 colors; I was sent a pack of June Bug and Green Pumpkin. The bait gets it name mostly from the unique ribbed spear shaped tail. The original intent for this bait was to be a compact bait good for punching heavy cover with a stout 5/0 flipping hook. However, when I saw the action of it's tail on a You Tube Video before I ever received the bait I was fixated on one thing and one thing only. I wanted to use the Devil Spear as a swim jig trailer and that's it. The ribbed spear tail's action is a dead ringer for the tail of a baitfish propelling the fish through the water. Rigged on a swim jig it gives an incredible baitfish profile and action just like I thought it would. It can also be rigged on a weighted swim bait hook and be used as a swim bait.

As a swim jig trailer I have only thrown the Devil Spear for about 30 minutes from shore. With the weight and compact stature of plastic you can throw even a light swim jig a very long ways; Swim jigs are definitely a bait where distance can matter. In the 30 minutes I caught a pike and a couple of bass and had a couple of other hits that came off. One thing that is nice is that you can rig up the Devil Spear out of 4 different sides on a swim jig which adds to it's shelf life.

From what I have seen I give the Devil Spear an A-.

The Bobby Lane designed Craw Fatty™

Aptly named the 4 inch Craw Fatty kind of reminds me of a hybrid semi-beaver/Chigger Craw. It's body is wide and thin with Chigger Craw arms. The body is detailed with little ribs, little legs off the side, raised eyes and two plastic strip antenna in-between the craw arms. The Craw Fatty comes in at least 10 colors of which I was sent black blue fleck and green pumpkin. Texas rig it, use it as a jig trailer, or chatter jig trailer is all good. I read somewhere else that it skips well and makes a serviceable topwater toad.

I used it as a a chatter jig trailer and this is some of what I caught on the black blue fleck:

I really like the Craw Fatty, I also give it an A-

Gary Klein designed The Deuce™
There isn't to much original or exciting when it comes to the The Deuce; It's a 3 inch double tail grub that Berkley says has an extended body to accommodate a bigger hook and specially designed twin tails that are suppose to move at very slow speeds. You couldn't prove either of those things by me because I just don't own many double tail grubs and the one's I do own are buried somewhere. It comes in 10 colors and I was sent smoke sparkle and green pumpkin. I used it on a ball head jig and as a swim jig trailer. No luck with it as a swim jig trailer, but the fish didn't seem to want a swim jig that day. I did catch quite a few fish either jigged or straight retrieved on the ball head jig, but the fish seemed to run small.

I think it's a reasonably good bait, so I'll give it a B-.

The Skeet Reese designed Pit Boss™
I guess you would call the 4 inch Pit Boss a creature bait. It's got kind of a very elongated tear drop shaped body with ribs that are mostly on one side and off the bottom it has two saber tails and two tails that come straight off the bottom. The saber tails give a lot of kicking action when pulled through the water. They come in at least 10 colors and Skeet gave some of them original names. I was sent California which is kind of a brown pumpkin with lots of red fleck and Vampire Orange which is black and red. It is designed to be a flipping bait, presumably Texas rigged and that is how I fished it. I was excited about Vampire Orange because black/red is a good bowfin color. So far I have given the Vampire Orange a workout and caught several bass and a couple of pike. I think I may have had 4 bites on it from a bowfin but I couldn't hook up. Sometimes hooking up was a problem with both a 3/0 wide gap or 4/0 wide gap hook. I tried it as a chatter jig trailer but wasn't impressed as the saber tails seemed to lose their magic. I think the bait is probably most effective when hopped a foot or two and then letting it fall with either a horizontal or vertical retrieve. Because of the saber tail action you can swim it as well.

I was least impressed with the Pit Boss so I'm giving it a C.

One great thing about all the Havoc baits is they are $2.99 a pack and can be found at Tackle Warehouse and Bass Tackle Depot.

Other reviews of these Havoc baits can be found at:
Lunker Hunt
Man Versus Fish

Disclaimer: The Berkley Havoc plastics were provided to me free from Berkley via the Outdoor Blogger Network. Other than the free product I was not paid to write this post and it is my honest opinion.

In the Mail- From OBN

Up pulled the Fed Ex Man, after the surprise on Monday, I remembered that I had a package coming from the Outdoor Blogger Network for a product review.

You may recall that the product is a foursome of the new Berkley Havoc Baits (Ike's Devil Spear, Klein's The Deuce (double tail grub), Skeet's Pit Boss, and B. Lane's Craw Fatty.

First impressions: The Devil Spear is an impressive piece of plastic, The Deuce not so much. The Pit Boss and Craw Fatty are kind of similar to one another; I think I'm going to have to do some reading about how they were designed to be used differently from one another. I noticed that Pit Boss's had slightly different head shapes from one another while the Craw Fatty's are much more uniform from one bait to the next.

I have decided I will review each bait separately. Look for those reviews to start sometime after the MN fishing Opener May 14th.

Winner Winner Havoc Grinner!

Thanks to the Outdoor Blogger Network I will be getting some free Berkley Havoc baits in exchange for an honest Bass Pundit product review.

From OBN: Each winner will receive 2 bags of each bait (2 different colors, specified in the details of the bait) for a total of 8 bags. At $3.50 per bag, you get $28 worth of new baits to try!

The baits are Bobby Lane's The Craw Fatty™, Gary Klein's the Deuce™, Skeet's The Pit Boss™ and Ike's The Devil Spear™. I think I am most looking forward to trying the Devil Spear as a swim jig trailer. According to the rules I am suppose to do the review within 4 to 6 weeks of receiving the product. Hopefully it will take a little while for the baits to arrive as Bass Opener is 7 weeks and 5 days away. However at a minimum I will be able to use them to try for dogfish and pike.