Breaking the Lead

Aside from my near-incessant--I'm sure you'll agree--ramblings on the Storm Kickin' Stick, I must said it lead me to a rather good customer service tale.

You see, back on that fateful fishing trip up in Huntsville when said lure paid for itself in a few nice catches, I lost it to the depths of the lake.

Here I am, three catches into the day, the sun setting and the mosquitoes rising. Confident in the power of my lure, I cast out far and clean. I'm skimming the weeds, hoping to draw out the predatory instinct of the pike to make him take my bait. Suddenly, I yank hard, there's something on my line... only to determine after a bit of reeling, that I'm snagged. No problem, if you're not snaggin', your not fishin'.

So I work the rod back and forth, holding it straight like my braided line prefers. I figure my leader's a solid 30 lb test, my line 20, and I've pulled harder before, so if anythings going to snap, it's my line. Yank, yank, tug hard, tug hard... nothing, it's not coming. I keep tugging, yanking, and snap! I almost fall back. I broke my line.

No worries, I say to myself, I'll just padding over there and retrieve my bait from the weeds. I row the boat, and it starts to glide right for where I believe the lure to be. I get closer and the lure comes in sight. I think I'm a bit high, so rather than try to grab it I try to slow the boat down. I've overshot, and the boat slides right over.

Unconcerned, I back paddle, assuming the weeds will pop-up and my lure will be retrieved. Instead, she's nowhere to be found. I life weed bed after weed bed with no success... my lure is sunk.

Pissed off, I reel my line in so I can swap out the leader and put on a blue shad, it still kicks, so I'm hoping for similar results. Once the lines in I take a look, and I'm shocked to see that the leader is intact, the end of which slipped out of its weave resulting in my lost lure.

Not wanting to miss the moment, I swap the leader out and get the blue shad into the water. The balance of the day shuts me out, and we head back to camp for a beer.


Returning to civilization I contact Matzuo's customer service and relay the whole story to them, impressing my dismay at losing my lure off their faulty leader. The response is simple and straight forward, they ask for my address and offer to replace my leaders and the lure with their competitive brands. A few weeks later I received two packs of non-Matzuo's leaders (Mark thinks they went to Walmart to grab them), and four Matzuo lures, that seem to be roughly competitive to the Storm Kickin' Stick.

My battle-hardened Kickin' Stick remains lost to the depths of a lake in Central Ontario, but I'm pleased with the response from customer service, and I'll be trying these new leaders--replete with welded connectors--on my new lures this season... I may even give the Matzuo leaders a run for their money.