Adaptive fishing innovations you gotta see!

Man has been fishing since the dawn of time, and it ain’t goin’ nowhere anytime soon. Adaptive fishing too remains one of the great sports for people with disabilities. You can do it sitting, standing, even lying down. Heck, the fish don’t care.

From a quadriplegic showing off his leather arm sling for his rod to a tour of an adaptive fishing boat with a lift for powerchairs (sweet!), here are three fishing videos showing that prove the fish have no chance (evil laughter).

In our first video, Kary Wright, C5-6 quadriplegic from Edmonton, Canada (injured a long time ago in 1986), shows off his fishing and rod skills, which he does from his power wheelchair.  While a lot of people like to go fishing on the river or on the ocean, lakes and ponds are his favorite fishing spot.

After his spinal cord injury, one of the first things he wanted to do was get back into fishing. After trial and error, Kary finally found that t-handle rods work best, and he especially loves his leather arm sling that helps him hold his rod – the Strong-Arm.  This handy device lets you put a fishing rod right into it so it’s permanently fastened the underside of your arm.

In his video, watch him fish from one of his favorite spots – right near the water on the shoreline – for Northern Pike (he admits it’s hard finding a lake where you can get close to shore-line wise when you’re in a chair).  As his friend records the video, watch him catch a nearly 10 pound fish, carefully bringing it into shallow water so he doesn’t lose it. Watch him fish

In our second video, father and son duo Andy and Todd (the son is a quadriplegic), give a tour of the family’s custom adaptive fishing boat (a Campion power fishing boat), as it’s docked in a beautiful lake up in Northern Minnesota. In the video, the dad shows the entire process of getting him into the boat from start to finish (takes about 6 minutes), using a custom hoist system (the key to making it accessible).

Once the dad has the hoist set up, Andy rolls over to the hoist, his dad hooks him up to it, and then it lifts him and his 300lb chair up and over the side of the boat, right into the boat. When they’re done, you get to watch the boat take speed, nose up in the air and take off. Check it out

And our third video is an idyllic little beauty. Chris Stone, a paraplegic obsessed with adaptive fishing, shows how fly-fishing from a wheelchair is done. For those not aware, fly-fishing takes a lot of wrist function and you can either do it from the shoreline or in the water itself. Chris prefers to say on land and has found a great little spot where he can nestle up close to the water.  In his short 1 minute video here, watch him do his thing with some impressive upper-body finesse.

There’s something so peaceful about getting back out there out and fishing.  Maybe it’s harkening back to our ancestors, I’m not sure, but I do know that there’s a lot of good things that can come something as simple as fishing. And even better, it’s a hobby that can feed you. Win-win, yum.

Do you fish? What adaptive fishing equipment do you use?

Watch these adaptive fishing videos!

– Quadriplegic adaptive fishing Northern Pike

– Tour of an accessible adaptive fishing boat

– Paraplegic going fly-fishing