by Joe Cermele

When I was in college, the only things I invented were new ways to make a guitar amplifier sound louder and crunchier, and new reasons to skip class to go fishing. Perhaps if I had studied biological systems engineering like Justin Vannieuwenhoven (left) instead of journalism, I too would have been on my way to being a noted inventor in the fishing world before walking at graduation.

Vannieuwenhoven, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recently won top honors at the school's annual Innovation Days competition. His self-adjusting fishing rod holders not only earned him the Schoofs Prize for Creativity, but also a cool $10K, per this story in the UWM News. 

By Joe Cermele

A few weeks ago we had an old fly with a cool story in the vintage tackle contest, so this week why not a fly box? This gem was entered by Charlie Krause, who found the box in an assortment of old fly tying stuff that belonged to the father a friend. According to Dr. Todd Larson of The Whitefish Press and "Fishing For History" blog, what Charlie has here is a box better than most of the ones hanging for sale in fly shops today.

By Joe Cermele

On the left side of my hacked self portrait, I'm standing in a frigid trout stream in eastern Pennsylvania. On the right, I'm about 1,500 miles away on the flats of Key West, Florida. The Eco Dempsey shades from Dizm Eyewear stuck on my face are the glue. If you're going to give me a pair of glasses reminiscent of those worn by Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" and tell me the polarization is top shelf, I won't take your word for it; I'll fish them in as many environments as I can and see how they stack up. And though it might seem more likely to find these particular glasses on the counter at the surf shop instead of the tackle shop, I must admit they fished quited well.

By John Merwin

I review and report on lots of new fishing tackle over the course of a year. Some reels and rods are inevitably much improved, and I love the technical innovations. But I occasionally think that maybe I’m too enamored of new things. So what about the old stuff?

In pondering this, I decided I could be perfectly happy fishing with the same things I was using 20 years ago. In fact, some of the “old stuff” doesn’t seem old at all and still functions perfectly. Here are some examples: