Gear and Gifts


Aw Shucks! The ultimate gift for the oyster lover. Opens horizontally, keeping juices in the shell. Now anyone can open oysters, safely! Phone: 207-563-1146 Website: AwShucksOysterOpener.com

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Because belonging matters. Give the gift of belonging to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Join online at cbmm.org/join.html and receive $5 off. Call or email for more info. St. Michaels, MD Phone: 410-745-4991 Website: cbmm.org

J Gordon & Company, Inc. Toys for the Captain We will help you make the perfect choice: depth sounders, instruments, chart plotters (or just adding AIS), radios, and more! Expert installation available. 726 Second Street Annapolis, MD Phone: 410-263-0054 Website: JGordonCo.com Email: jgordonco@aol.com

MaraMAPS Chart your way to great entertaining! Your favorite map or chart laminated on a custom made, water-resistant table or tray. Great for decks, patios, boats, RVs, indoor and outdoors! Tampa, FL Phone: call Shawn Ryan at 813-382-8916 Website: MaraMAPS.com

Nettle Net Boat Pools A gift the whole family can get in to! * Enjoy a refreshing swim on a hot summer day with no jellyfish to ruin the fun. * Launch and retrieve the 8', 12', or 20' diameter Nettle Net in minutes from your boat or dock. * No storage worries. The 12' pool stores in a bag about the size of a basketball. * Starting at $499.95 Phone: 800-962-9020 Website: NoJellyFish.com

OpSail Virginia 2012 Just in time for the holidays! Order your official, limited edition John Barber OpSail 2012 Virginia™ poster. Visit OpSail2012Virginia.com to order. Phone: 757-411-2345 Website: OpSail2012Virginia.com

Sea Tow Savings, service, security. The gift that lasts all year- just $149! 24/7 assistance. Phone: 1-800-4SEATOW Website: SeaTow.com

WhirlyBird Solutions, LLC The simple, safe, and effective solution to nuisance birds! WhirlyBird Repellers spin and wobble in the wind and reflect sunlight to repel nuisance birds. * Protect your valuable boat and dock * Spins with light breeze - no batteries required * Manufactured with durable UV-resistant plastic * Discourages birds from perching, roosting or nesting * Environmentally friendly - will not harm birds * Comes preassembled * Tested and used by US Coast Guard * Proudly made in the USA Phone: 800-377-1103 Website: whirlybirdrepeller.com

LURES

Berkley Gulp Alive Jerk Shads and Belly Strips
In recent years, the 5-inch Berkley Gulp Alive Jerk Shad on a 1/4-ounce jig has become a standard lure in the Bay for schoolie rockfish, speckled trout and puppy drum, but it's a tad small for jigging big rock in the fall and spring. Now Berkley has introduced 6- and 7-inch Jerk Shads, along with 7-inch Belly Strips that work well as trailers on large bucktails. Laced with Berkley's proprietary Gulp Alive "Magic Gravy," these jig tails are biodegradable. They come in resealable plastic tubs that are much less leak-prone than earlier Gulp tubs. By the way, the Jerk Shad tails also work well on rockfish when Texas-rigged with weighted swim-bait hooks so they fall and swim horizontally. www.berkley-fishing.com

Bomber Badonk-A-Donk Slow Sinker
In the past several years, Bomber's saltwater grade Badonk-A-Donk walk-the-dog surface plugs have caught plenty of fish. Now the company offers a slow-sinking version that suspends between twitches. Two and a half inches long, weighing 1/2 ounce, the slow sinker is available in 15 color patterns. It's just right for casting to rockfish, speckled trout and puppy drum around marsh banks, oyster reefs and docks at dawn and dusk. www.bombersaltwatergrade.com

Hogy Lures
Hogy soft plastic lures have established themselves with rockfish anglers up and down the Atlantic coast, though they are not as well known on the Chesapeake as Bass Assassins and Bass Kandy Delights. Hogy uses a proprietary plastic formulation that is at once supple and tough, yielding minnow-shaped baits in various thicknesses from 6 to 18 inches, plus a trio of soft plastic flounders from 3.5 to 8 inches. Perhaps most important, though, is the wide range of innovative hooks and jig heads the company offers for casting, jigging and trolling, whether you're fishing shallow water, deep water or anything in between. In addition, the comprehensive Hogy website offers an online learning center for rigging options and fishing techniques, plus an online store. www.hogylures.net.

Rapala Clackin' Minnow
Three years ago, Rapala developed its Clackin' Rap, a lipless vibrating crank bait with fish-attracting low-frequency sound, emitted by a single steel ball rattling in a chamber with corrosion-resistant metal sides. Now the company has combined the best features of that sound chamber with the hard-darting, suspending, fish-attracting motions of its X-Rap and Flat Rap minnow plugs. Available in sizes of 31/2 inches (7/16 ounce) and 43/8 inches (3/4 ounce), the Clackin' Minnow casts well and runs 4 to 5 feet deep. Crank it straight or rip it and then let it hang in the water column. The sound pulls fish in from a distance and the lure's action triggers strikes. www.rapala.com

Sebile Magic Swimmer
Sebile's Magic Swimmer is a triple-jointed crank bait that swims sinuously without the characteristic lip we associate with lures of this type. How? The plug's tapered nose and humpback head cause turbulence to roll along the body, first down one side and then the other, as it moves through the water. The alternating waves of turbulence cause the entire lure to swim like a live baitfish at both slow and fast speeds. The hard-plastic, treble-hook version is available in seven sizes, from 95 mm (3.74 inches) to 220 mm (8.7 inches) in 12 color patterns. The soft-body Magic Swimmer ranges from 130 mm (5.1 inches) to 230 mm (9.1 inches). This version gets a Texas-rigged swim-bait hook up front, fitted into a hook slot. The hook can be used weightless or it can accommodate a Sebile Soft Weight set forward or in the center of the shank to vary the way the lure swims. A notable point about both versions is that they swim naturally as they fall, without assistance from the angler. www.sebileusa.com

Specialized Baits the Bug
Looking for a different way to present Bass Kandy Delights and other soft plastic tails? Have a look at the Bug from Specialized Baits, a company based in Manassas, Va. This is a "boxing glove" type head with the line-tie eye at the front so it bounces easily over oyster shell and other rough bottom. Cast on high-quality Mustad Ultra Point black nickel hooks, Bugs have silicone filament skirts with plenty of room for the soft plastic tail behind. They are available in four Chesapeake-oriented colors and weights from 1/4 ounce to 2 ounces. Specialized Baits also manufactures a wide range of bucktail jigs and the Li'l Bunker casting/jigging spoon. www.specializedbaits.com

Trigger X Pheromone-Laced Soft Plastic Tails
Rapala's Trigger X brand recently introduced 5- and 6-inch Minnow Tails and 4.5-inch Paddle Tail Minnow Tails in a wide range of colors. These biodegradable jig tails are laced with what the company calls "Ultrabite Pheromones" formulated to attract saltwater predators. The lures are supple, with good swimming action, Bay-oriented colors and ridges on their bodies that increase surface area for enhanced pheromone release. They've proven they can catch fish. www.triggerx.com

RODS

Berkley Cobalt Fire Rods
Cobalt Fire rods are moderately priced graphite sticks designed for inshore saltwater fishing. They combine backbone with live tips, good actions for casting and working Gulp-tipped jigs, as well as fighting rock, specks and pups. Available in a variety of lengths and power ratings for both spinning and bait-casting reels, Cobalt Fire rods come with corrosion-resistant Pac Bay guides that work well with braided superlines. www.berkley-fishing.com

Shore Tackle and Custom Rods Carbon-Fiber Handles
Shore Tackle and Custom Rods has quickly become an epicenter of rod design on Maryland's Eastern Shore, thanks to the innovative thinking and long angling experience of owner Billy O'Brien. A particular specialty is maximizing the sensitivity of the rods for casting and jigging. Now O'Brien and his in-house Federation of Fly Fishers expert "Joe Cap" Capozzoli have collaborated on a new handle system built on carbon fiber cores. If you'd like a demonstration, visit the shop, grasp a rod with one of these handles and place the rod tip just in front of Capozzoli's nose. When he blows air on it, you'll be able to feel the vibrations. www.shoretackleandcustomrods.com

St. Croix Tidemaster Pack Rods
Theoretically, a three-piece, 7-foot spinning rod is for travel, but my St. Croix Tidemaster (TIS70MLF3) is so versatile I reach for it often on the Chesapeake too. The ML in the model number identifies it as medium-light, suitable for 1/8- to 1/2-ounce lures and 8- to 14-pound test line. Sure enough, it's light enough for wade-fishing for white perch in the Severn, but it can handle schoolie rock with a 3/8-ounce Chug Bug popper or a 1/2-ounce bucktail just fine. In fact, I even pressed it into service trolling a 1/2-ounce diving crank bait on a lake in Ontario this summer, where it neatly handled a 28-inch northern pike. Then it traveled with me to Alaska (its second trip there), where it subdued multiple super-powerful 9- to 14-pound silver (coho) salmon. It is truly a rod for all seasons. www.stcroixrods.com

REELS
Shimano Sahara Spinning Reel
Shimano's Sahara spinning reels have always been great values, but the company recently upgraded these moderately priced models with shielded anti-corrosion bearings, Fluidrive II polished gears, a Super Stopper II continuous anti-reverse roller bearing and a cold-forged aluminum spool with a special Propulsion spool lip for long casts. The SH4000FD is a versatile workhorse that can handle most Chesapeake casting and jigging chores. It can hold 240 yards of 8-pound monofilament or 265 yards of 15-pound braid. fish.shimano.com

LINES
Rio Clouser Fly Line
Rio's new Clouser fly line is designed to make casting heavy or wind-resistant flies easy, even into the wind. The company developed the line in collaboration with legendary Susquehanna River fly-tier and guide Bob Clouser, especially for casting his Clouser Deep Minnow, which has weighted eyes. Given that the Clouser Minnow has become a standard for Chesapeake fly-fishers, this floating line makes a lot of sense for fishing in water shallower than 5 feet deep, e.g., the marsh banks of Tangier Sound. The line's reverse compound taper and bullet front taper turn over heavy flies and smoothly transfer energy to prevent the characteristic "kick" with such patterns. Ace fly-caster "Joe Cap" Capozzoli advises anglers with moderate-action rods to slow down their casts to let the line work its magic. www.rioproducts.com

Sufix 832 Braid
The new 832 braid from Sufix won the Best New Line award at last summer's ICAST tackle show. It combines seven strands of Dyneema microfiber with one strand of Performance Fiber from W. L. Gore, the innovative fiber and fabric company based at the head of the Chesapeake. Sufix's proprietary R8 braiding system weaves these eight fibers together 32 times per inch of line. The company claims that the braiding process, the Dyneema strands and the Gore fiber produce a round, strong line with superior abrasion resistance, excellent knot strength and quieter movement through rod guides. www.sufix.com

ELECTRONICS
Humminbird Fishfinders
Humminbird now offers a new line of moderate-cost down-imaging/2D fishfinders with 5-inch screens and detailed 640 x 640 pixel-count screens that provide excellent detail, especially on the 800 kilohertz high-definition down-imaging frequency. At $800, the top-of-the-line 788ci HD DI Combo includes 50-channel GPS, color TFT screen, two card slots for charting and memory, and upgradeable software. The least expensive is the 570 DI dedicated fishfinder with a 16-level grayscale screen for $300. The company also offers a portable version of the 570 DI. www.humminbird.com