Fishing With Kenny

Looking for gifts for your favorite fisherperson? Skip the gift certificate and pick one of these often overlooked gift items that are available at local retailers.

article by KENNY COVINGTON

Every year during the holiday seasons as I shop around the tackle stores and sporting goods departments, often times I find myself helping more and more people pick out Christmas items for their loved ones. People who fish are a unique group of people so buying gifts for them can be difficult to say the least. What to buy them can be quite intimidating if you don’t really know what to buy or even what you are looking for.

The standard the past several years is to go to your local Toledo Tackle or Honey Hole Tackle Store or other retail outlet and buy a gift certificate/card for your favorite fisherman. While I have no problem receiving and cashing in a gift card, some people find that to be too impersonal for the time of year. “I hate giving them a gift card but I don’t know what to buy them” is something I have heard more times than I can count over the years. In this month’s BayouLife “Fishing with Kenny”, let’s see if I can help.

While picking out specific fishing items such as rods and reels can be a challenge the first thing I want to suggest are simple to pick out yet often over looked gift items. Here are a couple of suggestions:

FISHING PLIERS
Take it from someone who keeps several types of pliers in his boat (usually because I am bad about dropping them in the lake), from needle nose to split ring to even wire cutters, a fishermen can never have enough pliers. You can buy them individually or you can find them in packaged as a set. I have always recommended buying the packaged sets because you get the different sizes at a better price.

FISHING SCALES
When it comes to buying fishing scales the choices are numerous. While I don’t usually recommend specific brands I will say that any fishing scale I have ever purchased made by Berkley Fishing has worked extremely well and are quite durable. The ones I currently use are two years old and are showing no signs of wear and tear and are still very accurate. You will generally spend $30-$50 for a good set of fishing scales but they are well worth the cost.

“Well I hate to buy them that because they have so many of them already”. How many times have you said or hear that one? Trust me when I say a person can never have too many clothes to fish in. I fish over thirty tournaments a year in all seasons and conditions so I like having a wide variety of clothes to choose from. Here are a few things I have gotten over the years that I put to good use that would make a good gift choice as well:

FISHING GLOVES
No matter if you are buying them for cold weather days on the water or if you are wanting to purchase the kind of gloves that protect your hands from the harmful sun rays, there are fishing gloves abound. For winter time make sure the gloves can be worn and still effective keeping hands warm even if the gloves getting wet. Cold wet hands make for a miserable time on the water I assure you. When buying the newer finer material gloves that are being using for sun protection, those are simply a matter of choice but make sure they have a high sun protection rating.

FISHING SHIRTS
The manufacturing trend on fishing shirts is they are moving to lighter, breathable with high sun protection materials. The long sleeved T-shirt variety have become very popular and contrary to what some believe these long sleeved T-shirts make fishing in the hottest of summer temperatures to be very bearable. The only thing to watch for when purchasing these types of shirts is to be careful when picking the size, some of them run smaller due to the type of material they are made of.

NECK GAITER
Regardless if you are buying one specifically for the heat of the summer or to keep the cold out during the winter, a neck gaiter is worth its weight in gold, especially one bought for the winter time. The amount of heat that escapes around the chest core area when it is cold would surprise people who don’t spend a lot of time in the outdoors. If you purchase a good neck gaiter as a gift, I assure you they will thank you later. The summer style neck gaiter can also be used as face protection against the sun as well.
See how easy Christmas shopping has become for your favorite outdoors person? I haven’t even recommended rods, reels, lures or any of the little things people tend to stress out about. But because it is the Christmas season I will leave you with a couple of ideas that will make good stocking stuffers:

BULK SPOOLS OF LINE
If you are buying for someone who is serious about their fishing, chances are they change their line a lot. Purchasing the bigger spools of line may seem expensive, but in reality over the course of a years’ time you will save money. Find out their favorite size and type of line and you should be able to find a pretty good deal on the bigger bulk spools. Berkley Big Game is easily one of the better lines regardless of the fishing situation and is also the most price friendly for consumers.

FAVORITE SOFT PLASTICS
A good stocking stuffer for any fisherman is packs of soft plastic lures. Regardless of the choice of soft plastic, as long as it is watermelon/red, green pumpkin or some sort of a variation of the color black/blue, you can’t go wrong. Zoom, Reaction Innovations or any of the Strike King soft plastics are great choices.
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time each month to read BayouLife Magazine and checking out my article. I want to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year! Remember to be careful out in the wood and while you are on the water and be sure to catch one for me!