I am a member of the North American Fishing Club. That basically means that I pay yearly membership dues to get exclusive access to fishing content on their website and magazine, along with the ability to apply for gear to test and keep for free.
The testing process is a long waiting game. The best you can do is apply for as many things as you can and hope you get chosen to test a product that you like.
I have only gotten one test before- "Top Secret" braided fishing line (that turned out to be by Spiderwire).
About two weeks ago I was notified that I had been selected to test the "Johnson Slama Spoon". Since the shipping is as slow as can be, I got my new spoon just a few days ago.
The same day that I received the spoon was the day that I tried it out, but not before going to Dick's to see if I could use some coupons for K-State gear that I got in the mail.
When I got to Dick's, I found out that the prices for said football apparel are far outside the price range for most people ever, But I would never waste a trip there without checking the fishing section. It turns out that checking the fishing section was a good idea, as there was a good deal on one of the UV lures which I may have mentioned in previous posts.
I went straight to Rocky Ford from there and started using the new spoon that I had been given. At 3/4 ounces and 2 1/2 inches, it is much larger than most spoons that I use. Just as I was tying it on, it slipped and bounced down the rock towards the water. If it had fallen in the water, I would have absolutely no chance at finding it due to the fact that the water instantly plunges to 5 feet deep and is moving extremely quickly. With that little wake-up call, I started being more cautious while tying it on. I really thought that I had a good chance with it, but after twenty minutes I changed my mind and switched back to the UV lure. During this time I decided to move into the water as close to the waterfall as possible, and I quickly realized how cold the water had gotten in only one week of freezing temperatures. After thirty more unsuccessful minutes, I tried moving downstream into the riffles. It only seemed to get worse as I had no bites the whole trip and the water was numbing my feet.
I was getting the sense that the fish needed time to adapt to the cold. The best course of action seemed to be moving to Tuttle Creek, where the water would take more time to cool down. When I got there, the action moved at the exact same pace that it had before. After some time using crankbaits, I decided to pull out the scented minnows in a final attempt to catch something blog-worthy. After losing at least two minnows on rocks and getting a third one stu- oh wait that is a fish! I could tell pretty quickly that it was a flathead because it came to the surface before it realized it was hooked. Unfortunately the second time it came to surface the hook popped out. Nothing happened the rest of the trip.
This time of year is when you come to the realization that the fishing season will soon die and we will have nothing to do but analyze football stats and throw snowballs at the heads of our little brothers, how sad. Hopefully I can catch something with that new spoon before the season ends.
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