There's a New Push Pole on the Block


I have had the opportunity to try quite a few poling poles as a guide here in So. Florida. I
started, as many you have, with the most cost effective (cheapest) pole I could find. This is of
course the A'OK Fish & Bait $145.00 special. A great deal for a rough and tough, no nonsense
glass pole. I then moved on to Moonlighter .... a considerable difference, and a considerable cost
difference. Then I started the move to the caddilacs of poles ........ graphite composites, hybrid's,
solid graphite, and the most hi-teck and hi-dollar stuff I could find trying to find a pole that would
stand up to a tarpon season on the outside of Key Largo and Elliot Key. After breaking the best
of them, I thought it was me and my inability to set a pole properly, well OK, at first it was.

Then I was in Biscayne Bay Fly Shops when they got a new pole in from Texas. It was
called a Stiffy. This is by far the best pole I have ever used. I bought a Hybrid 80/20 . Eighty
percent graphite and 20 percent e-glass wrapping. This pole is twenty one feet long and weights
less than five and a half pounds. It feels as stiff as those 100 % graphic poles but will out perform
them hands down. The pole allows me to use my height (6'3") and weight (255 pounds) to push
my SilverKing as if it were a Mirage. I can lean on this pole to push up wind to reach a tailer that I
would not have even tried for in the past. The best part is this is not even their lightest pole .... not
even their second lightest pole.

Stiffy makes poles from their fiberglass poles (weighting 6.7 oz.. per ft.), an 80/20 Hybrid
pole (3.6 oz.. per ft.), an 100% graphite pole (2.56 oz.. per ft.), and a Hells Bay Custom Stiffy
(2 oz.. per ft.). The composite foot weights 8.9 oz.. and the spike is only 2.5 oz. When you do the
math a 21 ft. Hells Bay pole weights less than four pounds. These guys even make a pole for your
canoe or kayak in a reduced diameter and at lengths from five feet to twenty feet.

If you are in the market for a new push pole, or just want to get the very best for those few
days you have out on the flats, look at a Stiffy. When Flip Pallot handled this pole he had a
signature line created for his Hells Bay Boats, Jose Wejebe and Rick Murphy own a Stiffy Push
Pole. Check out the web site at www.fibertexsupply.com, or better yet take a ride down to
Biscayne Bay Fly Shop and handle one for yourself. Just make sure to tell them Capt. Dave sent
you.

Tight lines and quick releases .....Capt. Dave Sutton