Striker Brands - Striker Ice Mitt Review

Striker Brands – Striker Ice Mitts

Product Review – 09/29/2012

A few weeks back (during the Olympics) Striker Brands LLC was running a contest on their Facebook page. The deal was to see who could recommend the most people and get the most people to like the Striker page.  I ended up winning and getting a pair of the Striker Ice mitts.

Fast forward a week or two later and I get a package in the mail.

First impressions – The Mitts fit well and seemed very well constructed. They slid on easy and were adjustable in the wrist as well as up the cuff to keep water and cold air out. The knuckle section on the top of the mitt is padded and looks to be re enforced. One other Positive is that on the Velcro wrist strap they have added a Giant elastic loop for tightening. I think this will work great when cinching down the wrist to keep the mitt tight. I also noticed that the top of the mitt has a small zippered pocket. I want to say this is for a small hand warmer pouch, for the really cold days.

Now I only found one negative about the mitt.  The zippered pouch on the top of the mitt is small and awkward since it butts right up against the Velcro cinch on the wrist.

I took the time to find the stats on the Mitt from Striker Brands web page. They are as follows –

      Waterproof and breathable

      150g Thermadex insulation

      Ergonomic fit

      Easy on/off design

      Velcro pull closure large enough to use with mitts on

      Integrated pockets on the top of hand for heat packs

All in all this Mitt is very well designed and looks very durable. I hope to have the New "Climate" suit in hand within a few weeks to give a full review on as well! I cannot wait for first ice. Please visit  Http://www.strikerice.com to check out the full line of gear from striker!

-EK

Memories 7/16/2012

Mindy had to work tonight, and Zoey Zonked out on me around 8:30. I took this time in between to sit down and finish my homework for the week, after that I was walking through the house and noticed a fishing pole that I had started last year and never taken the time to finish.

This week was a stressful week to say the least, I picked up a part time job, so now my day consists of rod orders, work, daddy daycare, school, and family time. So I welcomed the alone time to sit down at my wrapper and work on a personal rod project.

Now as crazy as life has been it seem like the moment I sit down to wrap a rod all of it goes away. I end up in a zone and all I can think about is past memories of life lessons in the outdoors. Im not sure if its the way the thread lays on a rod or the way the powder turns from dust to a glosssy finish on a hot jighead, but something about it is tranquil. Tonight while sitting there wrapping the rod, I had ice fishing in the brain, who wouldnt with all this heat we have had this summer. Anyway, A memory I would like to share with you guys is the first one that popped into my head tonight. I was young, Im not sure when it happened or even where it happened. All I remember is I was out on the lake with Dad and my Godfather, otherwise known as "Uncle Lynn". I remember that dad had one of those houses that had a plywood floor and two plywood ends and a blue tarp for a roof. I believe now days they are called an Ontario Style house. Dad had taken the time to set up the house and get the holes marked, after that they slid the house off the holes and started drilling, this was the days before power augers, and as a matter of fact I still have that same old blue mora hanging in the garage that was used that day. Being a kid Im not sure if I was bored, excited or chasing something around the lake, all I know is I remembered those famous words still heard on lakes today, "Watch out for the holes". You guessed it......in went the foot, calf, knee, and finally stopping at the thigh. I remember dad grabbing me and throwing me into the old chevy pickup and turning it on and blasting the heat. Down came the house, all the gear loaded back into the truck, and off for home we went.

The next memory to come to mind was another with Uncle Lynn, this time we had taken a family vacation up to the Duluth area. We went with Lynn as well as my godmother Sally, After spending the night in Duluth we headed north to twig to stay at a very nice little cottage, well at least I remember it looking like a cottage on the lake. I remember that the lady who owned it was a friend of my godparents. Either way, I remember being on the dock with Lynn, Im not sure if he was fishing or if we caught anything but I remember him handing me a pole and casting it out. Being young I remember hooking something and pulling and pulling as hard as I could, I remember a snap as the line broke and running up to the house to tell Lynn about the huge fish that broke my line. Looking back on it now and remembering how silly I must have been telling my fisherman's tale, It was definitely a snag but back then......what a whopper!

Im not sure if its the fact that after Lynn passed away, I didnt see much of my godmother. Only to have come back into my life in the last six months. Or if its just the fact that Im a dad now that I am starting to remember this when Im at the wrapper and relaxed, But I welcome the memory's of lifes lessons.

I hope you enjoyed my little story's and I hope to have more time one of these days to get back to the blog and write some more. Either way, the rod is almost done, and is properly being dubbed "Casey" for Uncle lynns faithful companion.

Rest in peace, and I hope your Lines are tight Lynn! Wish I woulda had more time with ya!
Lynn Edward Bartsch 4-10-51 1-21-96

6/18 Kitty Fishing!

 I have been trying to get to catch my first Kitty for a while now and was finally able to last monday night. A friend of mine just happened to shoot me a PM with an offer of an open seat so I jumped on it. We set out about 5:15 from New Prague and we were on the water by 6. We headed down river and set up in a spot that looked promising with a good deep pool with some trees in it and a nice seem to toss some cut bait into.

We set out three lines one with cut bait, one with a plastic covered in a home made stink bait concoction, and a live bully. After getting the run down of the general plan for kitty fishing we were set to wait. Low and behold it was only a few minutes and we heard the clicker go off on the cutbait rod. Since I was new they let me have the honor of pulling in my first kitty, a healthy 18" or so channel cat.

After re setting the line about ten minutes later Scott pulled in his first of the night on the same rod, again a nice mid twenties channel cat.

We re set again, and had the same story for 4 more fish, all three of us got in on the action. We moved up river again working back to the landing and stopped in a few more places picking up another 3 channel cats, and some smaller flatheads. I also picked up a nice gar which was my first of that species as well.


Thanks for the fun trip Scott and Andy! Had a great time!

6/5/12 Bemidji Day Trip

Those of you who know me really well know that I'm a die hard online forum guy, I staff for a few, and post on them all. One site in particular I spend the most of my time on is Http://www.lakestatefishing.com . I've been a member there for a few years and also was promoted to a staff position at the end of last winter. Between the fishing reports, general banter, classifieds and local threads I also spend a lot of nights sitting in the chat-room chatting away with fellow fisherman. Many times myself and Matt Breuer have chatted about me coming up and chasing some fish with him, well about two weeks ago another member Jamie Owens asked me if I would like to head up there with him and just split the cost. Cant beat that.  We made the plans for the 5th and left it at that.
I left my place at 4 AM and met up with him in the metro at 5 AM after that the direction of the day was north. It was supposed to take us about 3 -3 1/2 hours to get up there, lets just say we has some issues between the gps not working correctly and a wrong turn. We finally hit clear water bait at about 9.....After a quick stop to get bait we headed to meet Matt. We got the boat in the water and headed out to a shallow bar mid lake and started drifting and jigging for eyes in about 5-8ft of water. Matt put one in the boat within minutes, we had one in the box.....Well I think Matt picked up another 2, while Jamie and myself had no such luck. We did however land some sumo Perch. We also spotted a nice musky lounging on the rocks collecting some sun, and saw a few more nicer fish swim by. Pretty neat to be able to sight fish Perch and Walleye's in early June, in Blistering heat and no waves.
The rest of the morning had us running back into the river and then running to the other end of the lake. Same story- shallow, clear water, we found a few more walleyes and a few good fighting pike before running out of minnows.

We then decided to hop over to another lake and chase pan fish. We searched some shallow cabbage and Lilly pads in 5-10 ft of water. The rigging of choice was light line with floats and lindy lil nippers. Tipped with a waxy. Again I didn't have the luck the fellas had but did tangle with a few Nicer fish. Matt landed a really nice crappie that came in around 13.5" and Jamie landed a couple nice Gills that hit over 10" on the tape. 

All in all It was nice to get up there finally and fish with Matt! Thanks for taking us out bud, and we will see you when the water is frozen! If your ever in the Bemidji area and wanna get on some fish be sure to give Matt a call, His contact info can be found at http://northcountryguides.com ,

So far this spring I have fished a handful of local lakes, Gull, and Bemidji. I think next up I will hit Mille Lacs, then it sounds like we will be taking a family trip to the Detroit Lakes area end of June. So watch for reports and tight lines!

EK

Tournament time!

Well Friday took off to Gull lake by Brainerd MN. The goal was to fish deep water pulling rigs and look for big fish right away and then finish up with smaller fish if we needed too. Well we ended up pulling rigs and jigging over some shallow water humps pulling up 14-20 inch fish almost all day saturday with 5 over the 15 inch minimum for weighing.
Sunday we hit the same area and pulled up three weighers right away. My Partner was just getting ready to change colors about ten oclock when BAM the rod almost flies out of his hand. He starts to play the fish and right away we think we found our 6 lb'er for the day. We get it boatside to find out its a 6lb fish just not a walleye lol. Ended up pulling a huge pike that in previous years would have most likely taken the big pike money. So the rest of the day we found some more 15 inch fish and finished out with 6 and a weight of 8.2 lbs

We ended up finishing 9th out of 42 teams with a weight of 16.11 lbs. Not bad for a rookie.....I look forward to fishing this tourney again next year and exploring gull some more. No Pictures as a replacement phone is on the way, the rain and stormy weather claimed my phone sunday and it is hashed.

Tight lines.
EK

We all have those days, Right?

Since the last entry I have been busy, busy, busy. Seems I have only had time to get out about 4 times in the last month. With it being as warm as it was a few weeks back I was finding fish and they were hungry, Anything that was blue/chartreuse was lights out. The following few weeks lead to a cold snap and rainy conditions. Which pushed the fish back out deep and eliminated about 80 percent of my shore spots.

Last week a buddy picked up a new boat and asked me to come along for its maiden voyage. We agreed to meet up and hit the water in the late morning. We started off trying to duck away from the wind but ended up just tolling the shoreline and fan casting jigs and plastics. Within a few cast's it was fish on, a 9-10" Largemouth, Out of season....lol I think I caught another 3 and we decided to move. We ended up hitting another area on the lake which is a shallow bowl between the upper and lower portion. Again we set up to fan cast and troll, first fish Was to my buddy, a small Pike that snapped him off right at the boat. Next up it was me with another bass. This was the story for the next two hours before we called it quits.

I should have some free time this weekend to get out and about and try to get some footage. It looks like cold weather and rain the next day or two then another warm up so we will see what happens.

I want to take a moment to mention the jig and plastic I have been using. The 1/16th oz Lindy Watsit has been providing good action for me so far, although it is a fairly Large bait I have been able to catch some nice sunfish and crappie on it. When they do reject it I have been switching to 1/64th - 1/80th home tied hair jigs in blue/chart which are also working great on those finesse days.

Walleye opener is just around the corner! Tight lines!

Ek

 Well My quarter at school is over so I have some free time. Been working on some rods lately so I thought I would put up some pictures. The first one is a test rod that is mostly leftovers that I wanted to try some new rod wrapping techniques along with adding decals to the rods. So far I like it I think the white blanks will make the decals easy to see and gives each rod that unique look.













The second set of rods are a set of 32" walleye rods, built on solid carbon blanks. They have 5" cork handles and are wrapped in stock colors. Nothing new with these but I thought they looked really nice. They will have Seymo "stand - off" single foot fly guides which should give them a unique touch.

the Seymo guides are very unique and are set off the blank just a hair. They are a great option when trying to keep things light weight.



Till next time, Tight lines!

EK