This event actually occurred last summer, but as I need to purchase a new reel for a very nice rod I received, it came to mind again. I fish, I grew up fishing, and I’ll probably fish until I just absolutely cannot anymore. I like it, no… I love it. I love being out on the water, in the sun, with a breeze and the challenge of figuring out what mood the fish are in today, where to go, what bait to use, it’s relaxing. When you lay into a lunker, it’s down right fun. Mainly, I love to Bass fish, white bass, black bass or stripers, but mainly black bass. We also do a bit of crappie fishing, mainly because the TDH likes it. To clarify some points, we do not use live baits and we catch and release with the odd exception of one that was hooked wrong or injured in the process. We’ve caught many very nice sized bass, including 8 and 10 pounders, which we snap quick pictures of and release. There are no fish stuffed on my walls, thank you.
Back to the story……I had a bait caster rod and reel combo that I had just worn out, so after saving my nickels and dimes for a few months we went to our local Bass Pro Shop. We used to go to Bass Pro regularly, have a rewards card, etc, but mainly we bought things we didn’t really need assistance with, a new tackle box, replenishing the soft baits, that type of thing. We hadn’t ever really “used” the associates roaming the floors or the reel counter staff. This particular day, we made a bee line for the reel counter and had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. The rod I had was fine it was the reel I’d worn out, so I was out to buy a nicer reel. We approached the reel counter and the associate was busy, so TDH and I began looking at reels… he had his eye on a new one also, but he uses spin casters. When the associate became available, he approached my husband who told him he was just looking, but that I was here to purchase a new reel. This gentleman was an older fellow, with a white ring of hair above his ears, a pleasant smile and a Santa Clause belly…. He’d make an excellent Santa…. Which made me smile…. But the smile quickly faded as he completely ignored me and asked my husband what reel he was going to buy for me. TDH told him, she’s buying what she wants, I’m just along for the fun of it. This seemed to confuse the associate some, so he tried again. He told TDH that the spin caster reel he had in his hand would be a most excellent reel for me. TDH laughed and said “she hates spinners, she uses bait casters, that’s why SHE is down there looking at the bait casters.”
SO this really confused the guy. Trying to make it even easier for him to get the grasp of, TDH wondered off to eyeball some new hard baits, leaving the associate no choice but to come my direction, which he did. Now….. this is my normal shopping habit- I go, I pick, I buy, I leave. It takes longer to get my wheelchair out of the truck and back in the truck than it does for me to make up my mind, yet another aspect of a female shopper that seemed completely lost on this associate. I had pretty much made my mind up it would be one of two possibilities. The most likely was an Abu Garcia Revo. The next 15 minutes was comprised of me having to convince this associate that I indeed DID want a bait caster reel, and that I indeed DID know how to use one and had been using one for quite sometime, and that this was, in fact, a replacement reel. Then I completely blew his mind by asking for a left handed one. It’s fairly obvious that I’m right hand dominate, however when you have EDS you learn to use both hands because it doesn’t take a whole lot to wear one out. This way, you can switch up and keep right on going. Works with fishing, works with computer mice, works with the 10 key calculator. He argued with me about the type of reel I wanted, the left hand set up and then proceeded to argue with me about the line. I like braided line on mine. TDH can’t stand it on his. I never thought much about it, and usually we loaded ours at home anyway, but he offered to put it on for free, so I said sure. When I went over, picked up the line and brought it back, he proceeded to argue with me about it also. At this point, I’m getting a bit frustrated, so I said, okay fine, I’ll just do it at home. He said no, no, he’d do it. Then I asked him to only put a certain amount on it, even showed him with my thumb nail exactly where I wanted it filled to, no higher. He argued with me about this also, so I said, okay fine, I’ll do it at home….oh no, says he…and off he goes to fill it up.
While he’s doing so on his fancy little machine I wondered off to replenish my stock of hooks, sinkers, worms, lizards and pacachunks. He found me in the pacachunk isle with my new reel in the box and the box of left over line. He dropped it in the shopping basket and noticed that I was having a hard time reaching a particular bag of pacachuncks that I wanted. Being the outstanding gentleman that he is, he offers to grab it for me, but then sees what it is I want and proceeds to begin a whole other argument about why I want that particular one. During this discussion he peers into my basket and digs out my hooks and starts questioning me on my selection there also. So I explained I use these hooks this way with the pacachunk. His words, and I’m not kidding, “Impossible”. Really? He then launched into a monologue about how this wouldn’t and couldn’t work and I’d never catch any fish this way. I was pretty annoyed at this point and couldn’t help but wish I had a picture of the very handsome 8lb Black Bass I’d caught the weekend before with this very set up. I opted instead to explain to him that I use it all the time with great success. He accused me of lying.
Okay….I’ll tolerate quite a bit, but that just was enough. Luckily for this associate, TDH wondered up at this point and, thankfully having missed the prior arguments, was blissfully unaware of the situation. So, I said “honey, will you tell him about the fish I caught last weekend, the big one, not all of them.” TDH proceeded to tell him how I’d laid a nice shot up on the edge of the bank and just snuck my little pacachunk past some brush when WHOMP…this nice big bertha bass took it and ran…he was still pumped up about it, so we got the whole demo of the flip cast, the playing her out until she got in the boat and my being kind enough to let him hold her before I put her back. The poor associate just stood there, dumbfounded….”you released an 8lb black bass?” Yea, we always release…we want them to go make more little bass! Then, he just HAD to put the icing on the cake…. Not only has he told me that I:
Don’t know how to fish
Don’t know what reel I should use
Don’t know how to use a bait caster
Don’t know what line to use
Don’t know how much line to put on the reel he didn’t want me to purchase
Don’t know what bait to buy
Don’t know what hooks to buy
Don’t know how to rig said bait to said hooks
But now he adds….
Must have just been dumb luck.
I love my husband, because he still didn’t get offended… he just said “Dumb luck? No, she usually slams me and the guys we fish with pretty regularly”. Now…I’m sorry, but at that point I was done, so I just rolled off. I was SO done that I just wanted to hand the basket to the nearest, different, associate and leave the whole mess behind. But, TDH caught up with me and convinced me to go on and check out. So, I did. The girl checking us out asked if we found everything we needed, to which I responded yes, but that the associate at the reel counter was a male chauvinist pig that didn’t think I knew how to fish, what reel or baits to use and I didn’t really appreciate that. She, naturally, said nothing.
Since then, we’ve more or less quit going to Bass Pro Shops. If we just can’t find what we need else where, then we will go. So it was with some dread and trepidation that I began the hunt for a new reel for this new rod. I pretty much already know what I want, and I know that Bass Pro is likely to have the better price on it too, but the very idea of getting put through that same experience is just not worth it… I want the new Abu with the flippen switch, but I really wanted to see it, hold it, feel it and see if it’s worth the extra cash I’m going to have to save. It’s about $100 more than getting another Revo. Is that little switch worth that? Without seeing, feeling, holding…I don’t know…. Sigh….
So…we received gift cards to, want to guess…..Bass Pro Shops. Apparently OTHER people can figure out that we are serious fishing nuts, but not Bass Pro Associates. We were in Springfield, you know….the HOME of Bass Pro Shops…so we went. TDH went to check out a new fishing jacket, while I made my way back to the reel counter… He caught up with me at least 20 minutes later, still waiting there, being completely ignored by every available MALE associate. As soon as he walked up, one greeted him and said he’d be “right with us”. I shook my head and left, explained to TDH that the entire time I waited there, obviously looking at reels, picking up different ones, etc…not ONCE had ONE single associate even acknowledged my existence. He wanted to go back and say something to them, or stop at the customer service counter, but we had a long drive home still to go, so I said no thanks.
Will Bass Pro get my money for a new reel? Probably…it was a nice gift card, would be a shame to waste it…but odds are I will by it online, cross my fingers and hope I do like it.
