You can only wrap graphite or mount cork on a cylinder in so many ways. Once you’ve run through the gamut of blank colors, off setting trim, and hook keepers, why not mimic Microsoft and start adding stuff no one asked for?
Especially now that all the gadgets will be getting smart …
Wi-Fi Direct will make it easier to liberate the mounting gigabytes of digital family photos that are trapped in cameras, smart phones or PCs. Now those gadgets will be able to connect directly to digital photo frames, TVs or printers.
Add Twitter into the mix and every hooked fish, tree limb, and extremity can be immortalized in a vast stream of consciousness guaranteed to have the folks at home blowing snot bubbles.
Temp 54F. Wind SE 10 mph. Tree contact. Rock. Elevated angler blood pressure. Fish miss – estimate 4”. Vertical attitude adjustment. Sensor submerged. submerged. lateral drift. Angler vocal …photograph taken, posted to Facebook…
Back at the office, we’ll be undressed in mid pantomime – while insisting the fish was 18” long and fought for hours, when everyone’s already seen our Facebook page and listened to us swearing over the Twitter feed.
Rod companies can imbed cameras, sensors, weights and measurement, dispense fly floatant or insect repellant from the rod handle, and record it all for posterity – uploading it to the Internet as soon as we get within cell coverage.
Fly fishermen and the gadget obsession is the stuff of legend, but without complete control over content and censorship, we’d never ask for a “smart” rod that made an accurate record of our outing.
… leaving the rod companies to insist we need it, that it’s lighter than air, and spin our skepticism into something we think necessary and vital.
With a memory stick tucked in the vest and device-to-device communication we could store thousands of images and sensory data that would be embarrassing to us – yet a boon to science. We’re willing to abandon felt soles for the Greater Good, why not embrace honesty for an even greater fisheries reward?
… until that fellow up-riffle sidles closer, hacks into our data and starts downloading all the flies we’ve tried and their result. The canny angler will have his “master caution” light start to blink at first intrusion so he can grab a smart rock and …
Tags: Wifi Direct, fly fishing gadgets, facebook, twitter, Internet, smart rods, graphite, fly floatant, fisheries
Bill over at http://www.rffr.biz Red Feather Custom Fly Rods has put 2 dog tracking chips into fly rods in case they get lost. the first was as a joke, the second at the request of an angler that got too much gear stolen before.
OK, but where is the advertising pitch?
“Our dog tracking chips are helically spun of the lightest Graphene nanotubes, allowing anglers to cast further, wade deeper, and ..”
… it can’t just be a Dog Chip.
Hey, such stuff is needed because if it doesn’t show up on one of them computers, it never happened.
If a fish is caught in a forrest stream and nobody’s around to blog about it…
Do you suppose there is a reason they chose the name: Sage rods, and not Lightning rods? Full internet satillite connectivity is worth right arm right?