The guy has a Stiffy!!! Great day on Okeechobee, sight fishing, poling around some good areas, taking it slow and stealth, and it paid off.
I have a 14 foot fiberglass Stiffy Push Pole. It works great. You need a push pole for many reasons, especially for hunting big bed fish up shallow in places like Okeechobee and Seminole. The Stiffy Push Pole I have is two pieces, it screws together and can be stored in two 7 Foot sections. The size of 14″ is a good size for me, the size of the boat and how deep of water I’m sitting. I seriously like having either 7 foot sections or one long 14 foot section of strong fiberglass pole in my boat when I run around Okeechobee. Between snakes, gators, birds and who knows what else, you never know when you need something to keep the critters away. Also, getting stuck, high centered, overheated, lost or otherwise in a bad situation, a push pole is quite a useful tool that I find myself using often. I imagine guys on the California Delta or Potomac, with the tidal nature of those waters, and for sure the river rats that duck into backwaters and ponds and need to push up and over shallow bars and structures, could use a good push pole. Click HERE to see us fishing on Lake Okeechobee, where we show the 14 foot fiberglass Stiffy Push Pole in action.
Something about a push pole is just cool. You get back to slowing things down, and taking the stealth approach. Don't kid yourself, it's way physically exhausting to push yourself and a 20 foot fiberglass boat around. It takes time to get skills and even get your boat pointed the direction you want to go.
Stiffy makes other push poles and accessories too. You can get the high end (and much lighter weight) graphite Stiffy Push Pole. There are multiple piece/modular push poles and also single piece. Just talk to the them if you have any special requests, they are good and can work with you to get the right length, material, and modular setup for your boat, and have the accessories for storage and mounting the push pole to your boat.
Stiffy storage on my Ranger Z520. I wrap the cord around it and secure it to my step, works great. Run that thing right down the center of your boat seems to be a good way to store it,when you plan on using it a lot and want to keep it as one big long piece.
Kaenon is based in Newport Beach, CA and has a ‘waterman’ DNA, where they strive for excellence in eyewear that meet the demands of the surfing, sailing, boating, paddle boarding, swimming, and fishing lifestyle. They make a family of stylish and functional frames, that can be fitted with excellent grey, copper or yellow polarized lenses. The lenses are a high end SR-91 composite material, which is their own high tech composite material–not glass, which means they are light weight and durable, yet they are quality, extremely high quality lenses, so they are awesome to look thru. They are light weight and sporty, and are a great compromise of function and fashion. They are fun to wear, especially on calm days, warming trend, somewhere between the North Shore and Indian Prairie! There is no reason to not experiment and try new things with your sunglasses and lenses and see what works and what fits you best and see if you don’t find something you like or something that works better. Kaenon’s are available in 3 vibrant and distinct color variations, that are polarized of course: Yellow, Copper, and Grey. I show you how I use the yellow (Y35) lens in the above video. I’m going to introduce you to my world viewed thru various Kaenon sunglasses with the various lenses in separate projects, starting with the yellow lens. The Y35 Kaenon Hard Kores are my choice for fishing in the black water of Okeechobee.
To understand why the Yellow lens helps ‘add light’ and brighten up the dark water of Florida, and brighten up cloudy and grey days for sight fishing, you have to understand the basics of ‘light transmission control’. The simple is, Yellow lens technology allows more light thru the lens. It blocks less sunlight, so you are gaining light vs. grey or copper lens (with the exception of the C50 which has my curiousity!). Go ahead and get yourself some yellow lenses and try them out. I bet you don’t take them off all day (in Florida anyway).
The Y35 Lens is amazing what it does to brighten up and ‘electrify’ an otherwise grey and gloomy day. When you mix in the black tannin water of Florida, the Y35 has a whole new meaning. These things pierce thru that clear black water we all strain our eyes to just see a little further, a little deeper, and detect a fish or a bed that much further away. Here are the advantages to a Yellow lens:
Added light: Great for seeing in black water, grey days, and cloudy conditions, especially when you are sight fishing. Yellow lenses allow more light thru, and are a tool of serious sight fishermen. Serious anglers have multiple sunglasses and lenses to approach certain situations, and these yellow lenses from Kaenon will be something you will appreciate and use regularly in your fishing.
Added contrast and detail: You can detect beds further away (light spot in dark water) or dark fish tail against light spot better. Or when it comes to detail, you can make out the shape and/or color of a fish better (vs. confusing it with grass or moss). Think about competition skeet and trap shooting. Those guys where yellow lenses, and I’m guessing it’s just for many of the same reasons. I find even on the bright bluebird days of Okeechobee, yellow lenses work just fine middle of the day, not just the low light and grey days. With the dark water of places like Okeechobee, the yellow lenses of my Y35 Kaenon Hardcores just work all day long, rain or shine, to give me added edge to see better.
Electrify your eyes: I find the Kaenon Y35 lens a lot like being in a room with a black light. Your eyes take a minute to adjust, but once you get the feel for them, the darks and lights really stand out and contrast each other. It’s like playing with the color levels of a digital photo editing tool. Adding light or otherwise taking away/filtering out darkness, can make a photo come out great, whereas natively, it might have been really too dark to make out whatever you took the picture of. Editing software makes it possible to make digital photos come out best. Use this same mentality to choose colors of lenses to match the water and lighting of your fishing spot. Yellow lenses electrify your vision and add contrast and detail you wouldn’t otherwise get. Again, think sight fishing where you are looking for the black tails on the fish, lateral lines, the white belly of a fish nosing down on your bait, looking for light spots out at the edge of your horizontal range, where you can best anchor down/setup on the bed to assess if a fish is there, and all the things you strive for perfection when sight fishing. Yellow lenses are just an aid to help your vision to see more fish, beds and better see your bait and “the bed fishing theater” while sight fishing.
Seeing your bait: It is no accident the colors of 5″ Big Hammer swimbaits (bright white, chartreuse/yellows really stick out with Y35 lenses on) I tend to throw at big bed fish ala the 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fish Rig, tend to contrast nicely and be highly visible with the Y35 lenses.
Boat Driving: There are plenty of occassion to wear your Y35 Kaenon Hard Kores when operating your boat. Morning take-off, and just any grey/cloudy dark conditions are ideal for using the Y35 lenses to add some light and just give you better visibility driving in the exposed outdoors at 65-70 MPH.
Hipster Alert: You can wear your Y35 Kaenon’s out to nightclubs and trendy bars!!
Yellow? You hear me? Kaenon Hard Kores with the Y35 lens are a key tool to my bed fishing, especially in Florida. The fish, your bait, and the beds all tend to contrast in the dark water better with a yellow lens.
I definitely recommend getting yourself into a yellow lens for fishing the dark water of Florida and just to have as a tool in grey/cloudy conditions and perhaps for driving your boat. I wear the Kaenon Hard Kore frame, because I find it incredibly light weight, sporty, and comfortable. I can wear them all day and don’t feel the fatigue of the nose or ear pieces on my head. You have a few frames to choose from from Kaenon that offer the Y35 lens. Here are the others frames that have the Y35 lens: The Arlo, The Kanvas, and The Rhino.
FishStrong published a review of the Kaenon Kores with the C12 (Copper) lens. Yellow lenses are a specialty thing, and definitely a tool to have, especially if you like “lookin’ at ’em” . But copper lenses, as Hale White from FishStrong explains, are the most universally useful. Take a look at FishStrong’s write up HERE. You can expect us to be back with our own take on the copper and grey lenses, and expect more collaboration with us and FishStrong too.
Sight fishing is like anything else, you need a system. Yellow lenses are part of my system and I encourage you to give it a try in the black water especially.
