New Rapala Shift Center-pin reel and new Rapala R-Type 11’6″ drift rod worked great!!
Posted on October 14th, 2013My wife Barbara, our pup Mulligan and I were joined again with our friends Rick and Mike and we met again at the Niagara Whirlpool around 10am this morning. To begin with, I have never seen the Whirlpool parking lot so full!! Not only was the parking lot full, but vehicles were parked on the surrounding grass & on the Niagara Parkway shoulder.
When we arrived down at the Whirlpool, anglers were everywhere, which was nice to see. Afterall it was Thanksgiving Monday, it was a beautiful sunny day….a perfect day to spend some time fishing.
[nggallery id=913]My goal today was to test the new Rapala Shift Off-Set Center Pin float reel and new Rapala R-Type 11’6″ Float-Drift Rod loaded with a main line of Sufix Tritanium, yellow monofilament and a Sufix Fluorocarbon leader. Wow, was I impressed. The “off-set” design makes it so ergonomic, very comfortable to hold and especially comfortable to gently access the rim-spool with my trigger-finger to gently either release line out, or clamp-down to set the hook on a fish. I was especially impressed with the smoothness of the bearings. Lastly, the “clicker” which is normally used when you place your hook on the rod “hook-keeper” to either move from spot to spot, or to hold the line when rigging or making rig-adjustments is very firm which means no line-slippage off the real.
The new Rapala R-Type 11’6″ drift rod also performed extremely well. It has just the right amount of “spine” to firmly support up to a 9-gram float & appropriate split-shot sinkers. The rod “loads” exceptionally well when you get into your back cast and has lot’s of torque when “unloading”. I was easily making casts from 50-100′ with ease. I’m really looking forward to using this Rapala drift outfit once more migratory & brown trout are in this coming Nov.
[nggallery id=914]We again met many fans that had seen the shows we produced at the Whirlpool and really enjoyed watching Simon & Jerome Veillette land a fresh-run female rainbows. Also, Misha Mulyakaev holds up to nice Shorthead Golden suckers he caught fishing worms on the bottom at the tail-out of one of the pools.
If you love beautiful scenery, hiking and fishing, the Niagara Whirlpool offers it all and you have the chance of catching some trophy fish!