Do-It-Yourself Hook Retainers Cost Only Pennies
I’ve never made a fishing trip during which I didn’t learn something. A summer ’06 outing to Mosquito Lagoon, Florida with Capt. Keith Kalbfleisch was an excellent example of the concept in practice.
Kalbfleisch is a light-tackle specialist with a knack for innovation … not only in his approaches to angling, but the tricks he employs to make the sport easier to accomplish.
After picking up one of his spinning rods, I noticed an innovation that’s worth sharing … especially if you own a favorite rod that does not contain a hook retainer.
Industry buzz has it that some fishing rod manufacturers are reluctant to provide built-in hook retainers due to reasons of potential litigation. Such holders are most often U-shaped with extended “feet” that are wrapped via thread to the blank, just like a guide would be. They are extremely convenient, but apparently, since some fishermen in the past have blamed factory retainers for hook barbs in their fingers as opposed to carelessness on their own behalves, several major rod makers do not include the accessories on at least some of their more popular blanks.
Idiotic litigation is a totally different subject.
The point here?
If your rod lacks a hook retainer, and like me, you want it to, the solution is waiting no farther away than the racks of your local hardware store. Cable ties have countless applications, and this is one of them. Difference is, the cable ties utilized in this situation are made with round rings at their forward ends.
I can’t say exactly what this specific design is primarily intended for, but I can assure you that when firmly affixed to a rod blank above the cork, the hard-plastic ring at the end of the tie makes a great hook retainer … one that can be had for well under a buck.
Despite its extremely inexpensive nature, a cable-tie hook retainer can add great functionality (and personal value) to your favorite trout rod. It is also extremely durable, unlike some of the soft-rubber slide-on retainers that fishermen occasionally buy as accessories to achieve the same purpose.
A special thanks to Capt. Kalbfleisch for this practical and helpful tackle tip. By the way, I am currently writing a feature on Florida’s Mosquito Lagoon … a redfish haven if ever one existed … that will run in the May/June ’08 issue of the CCA TIDE Magazine. I hope you will check it out. I’ll have some extended coverage on Mosquito Lagoon posted here within the next few weeks (currently in research), but meanwhile…
If you are ever headed toward the Sunshine State and want to fish the virtually landlocked hotspot that a great many understandably call “The Redfish Capital of the World,” call Capt. Keith Kalbfleisch at 321-279-1344 or check him out on the Web at www.capt-keith.com.
Capt. Keith and my buddy T.J. Stallings of Blakemore/Daiichi/TTI (that’s a red-plated Daiichi “Bleeding Hook” you see in the photo here) took me out on Mosquito Lagoon in September of 2006 to field-test the Black Salty baitfish. Suffice it to say, the trip went way beyond the “testing” phase … and directly into the “catching” mode … in the half-an-hour or so it took us to land the first three redfish of the morning on the pond-raised Salty (”Offshore-Size” live baits measuring between 4-1/2 and 5-1/2 inches long). Kalbfleisch also used a Salty to take a beautiful speckled trout that weighed in excess of 5 pounds. Before the day was done we had caught and released roughly a dozen redfish, all of them in the 32- to 28-inch class.
Believe it or not, those are “typical” Mosquito Lagoon reds.
Capt. Keith Kalbfleisch is one of the nicest fellows with whom I have ever had the pleasure of sharing deck space, and he knows the intricacies of chasing and catching Mosquito Lagoon’s notoriously-skittish … and almost invariably, big … red drum as anyone on the planet. Tell him I sent you.
And be sure to carry a camera.
You’ll need it.
Howdy. I am 
