BassBlaster

Don’t Try This at Home

Have you ever owned a piece of equipment that you just flat-out put through the wringer and wondered to yourself, “Dang! How much abuse will this thing take?”

I’ve got a piece of equipment like that—my Power-Pole.

But after watching the video embedded below, I just thought I had pushed my Pole to the limits. What this guy inflicts on his poor fiberglass anchor sticks is borderline masochism. He torques, tweaks and just plain abuses his dual Power-Pole setup in ways that make me wince.

I can attest to how idiot-proof these shallow water anchors really are. Here, for your entertainment, is just a sampling of some of the bonehead stunts I’ve pulled with my Power-Pole:

1. There was the time I speared a 3-foot wave and nearly swamped my boat. The bilge was working overtime and my buddy was bailing frantically. With all the excitement, I didn’t realize my Power-Pole switch had been drenched in saltwater and decided to drop itself all the way down while navigating among the supertankers on a sloppy day in the Houston Ship Channel. It wasn’t until I pulled out of the channel and onto an adjacent flat that I realized something wasn’t right. My boat shuddered to a stop and started spinning in circles like a dog chained to a tree. In an act of clarity that still surprises me to this day I had the bright idea of swapping the up and down wires on the back of the switch. The Pole came up and we managed to make it back to the ramp without killing ourselves. The switch dried out and still works fine nearly 3 years later.

2. I once drove down a highway going 70 mph with my Power-Pole grinding into the asphalt for a distance of at least a mile. My tackle bag had slid over and hit the down switch. I lost about 4 inches off my fiberglass stick, but other than that, the Power-Pole was fine.

3. This one happened in my driveway. I tossed my Power-Pole remote into a storage compartment in my boat and at some point during the night my GPS unit shifted and hit the down button on the remote. I came out the next morning to see my boat tilting to one side and the Power-Pole torqued out like a compound bow. I don’t know how long it was like that, but I still can’t believe the whole outfit didn’t explode.

Feel free to share your similar stories below. Please, please share your stories so I can know I’m not the only moron this kind of stuff happens to. And it doesn’t have to be Power-Pole related. Have you ever taken a piece of equipment to the brink of destruction only to have it bounce back and work for years to come?

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Bret Reid

    October 7, 2010 at 10:52 am

    Now that is good news for me! I just bought 2 Power Poles for my Z21 and had always wondered about the durability of these products. No question now!! Thanks for sharing.

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Gitcha Bassin' Fix

To Top