Increase in Rod & Reel Theft?
 

Are we seeing more theft these days or are we just seeing more posted?

There have been 8 or so in the past year reported here?

What do people do or what suggestions do you have for "marking" equipment? Anyone want to start an engraving biz ?

In all my rods I have put my name on a card in the rod blank on a string under the butt cap!

It seems to go on like this every year around the fall run.

john, this stuff use to go one even in the early sixty's down in narry. and there were no where the number of bass fisherman there is nowadays. you would hear of 2 or 3 a month, so maybe, things are actually better with so many guys on the move. just a thought. ed

it sucks, if i can't carry it- it stays home. leave nothing in the truck.

Lots of lowlifes out there all i do now is bring only what i'm going to use and nothing extra that way the only way they can steal it is if they knock you out and take it.Please let them try !!!

I usually put everything in the truck locked. I have roof racks but when I get to where I am fishing I put them inside. I know it is not failsafe but it is a deterant.

Everything stays with me. Never take off lure bag. Never put down my rod. If I need to go somewhere before fishing, I will go there then come back and get my gear. Never let anything out of my site, cause that is exactly what the degenerates wait for.

:scream2: :exp: :mad: :rocketem: :realmad: Not that the gear that was stolen from me was very high end (in relative terms, it was for me), there is a major investment made by many of us in the gear that we carry. This probably makes the prospects of stealing fishing gear attractive to many low lifes who cannot appreciate the impact their actions have on someone (like myself anyways) that has invested a fair amount to get the best they can afford. It's a pretty $hitty situation.:realmad:

I have most of my gear in my 4Runner all of the fall. I park on the street a ton and I know I need to bring it in. So far I've been lucky though.

Stealing fishing gear is like steeling skiis or a parachute. The last thing you want is bad karma with that kind of stuff. I just don't get it. I sure as heck wouldn't stand at the end of a breachway with an outgoing tide in the middle of the night with a stolen rod. If you fall in, you got it comming.

Beyond that its just wrong. They'll get it back one day. Its a heck of allot more rewarding doing the right thing.

John, you better put friggen low jack on that new stick.....

i was thinking
 

about an rfid tag
that could read
S-B followed by
the members number

hidden on fishing gear.
they come really small....
it's cheap and do-able

I put identification tags beneath the butt caps when I build rods. Push them up a little into the blank so they aren't obvious and can be extracted if needed. For reels, maybe lojack. :usd:

Good idea. really good idea. Tell us more.

We could find a way to do this through the site and raise some $$ for it as well.

This would be nothing but positive for everyone but thieves.

Agree. Great Idea... Some sort of small chips with GPS positioning hidden inside your rod. Should look into this more... That way you catch them with your equipment red handed.. :smash:

Ya, and I will volunteer my time to monitor the postion of all the rods, all the time :devil2:

I am such a giver

:laugha: OK then we have a volunteer. We'll give you hmmm a blue a week

I think a little ID plate inside the butt would be a good idea though.

I'm not overly concerned about theft ... although I will start to bring less as if anyone broke into my vehicle, I'd hate to have all the plugs taken that I've worked so hard to buy or beg ...:tooth: ... that that end, on most occassions, I have tried to curb back on what I bring on most fishing trips, unless I know that I can transfer it to the vehicle we may be riding on the beach with ...

Had one of mine stolen a couple years ago in Barrington. F'ing dirtbags. Granted i didnt have the rod in a very safe place, but still. people suck.

Hidden camera with features such as minature, digital, motion detected or rig up a trip switch, internal memory to capture image, 12 volts. Look on line and you may find a camera that fits your purpose.

Last night at the canal, the local police and the Staties were combing the service road and parking lots looking for a couple of "kids" robbing people. ( I can't use the term the local cop used to describe these "kids" to Ditch Jigger.)

Having been the victim of a hit on my truck in my driveway years ago I have since always travelled with a minimalist attitude.

If I driving out onto a beach I carry multiple rods and leave them on the rack if I fishing the canal, or parking lot hopping on the outer Cape it's one rod, one plug bag and a spare spool for the reel in my pocket. They are welcome to anything in my truck after that casue it won't amount to sh!t anyway.

Still, f^cking punks like that should be drawn and quartered but confronting them is not wise either especially if you are alone and there are more than one of them and even if it is only one of them kids these days, especially kids from questionable urban and suburban sections have a different attitude toward the use of a gun, kinfe or blunt instrument on yer ass.

TI originally developed the Mobil Speedpass to keep inventory on cattle of some sort. As they pass within a certain distance of a reader, their identification is read by a reader of some sort. Don't know the range you could get one to read, but it does sound like it had possibilities...

I don't know if its happenening more often or we're just hearing about it more often than we used to. With the internet nowadays its virtually instant communication. Back in the old days it could take weeks for the word to get out beyon your close circle of friends.

This isn't a suggestion - just a thought.

Graphite is conductive, and you could easily make a dummy fishing rod out of a cheap/spare blank with no finish. Just get an old capacitor, hook it up, and do some real fishing.

My gut guess is these aren't fishermen. If they are, they'd better pray they never get caught. Like someone said, 300 yards off a breachway is a lonley place to be at 2am.

"Sonny: How's Paulie
Clemenza: Oh Paulie . . . won't see him no more"

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well....it was just me thinking out loud ....

here's a website....with portable scanners for around 199.00
and some views of the chips themselves...
http://www.gaotek.com/index.php?main...FRyPFQodA30_6A
biomark has been utilizing this technology for tracking fish,birds even amphibians....

what would be so cool....is to set up our own sting operation though... purpously leaving some (not so great) bait rods in
in a pickup and watch the theives steal them.... look at how
fast it happened to BIGBO ...we're talkin about minutes.

any retailer now uses this technology....

what would be cool though is to have s-b tags.....to put inside the rods ... glued in...(built in) so they can't be shaken out...

then the rods are scanable.... even from a distance...
there are other issues to be discussed though.....like being able
to track a fisherman to their spots.... but .....what would be cool
is when s-b was notified that someone was trying to sell a stolen rod... leading to a whole garage full of stolen rods.

i've read articles where computerized vehicles drive thru neigborhoods determining what products are in households...
so it's time fishermen avail themselves of this technology so that
thieves won't be able to get away with it anymore.

All my reels are engraved in spots so the thieves cant just replace on part ;)

From my experience, theft seems to be a problem everywhere in The Ocean State as well as on the island of Nantucket in the fall. Breaking into cars/trucks to steal fishing tackle doesn't seem to be a problem on Massachusetts outer Cape Cod beaches or along the Massachusetts South Shore.

hmmmmm
 

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having read this post.... it occured to me that no person here....
who has reported stolen gear.....has typically put a $$$ dollars value on it...

more like.... a fully stuffed plug bag...rod and reel.....my whole tackle box someone walked off with,,,,

my point is.....that unless all fishermen unite in expressing what they are loosing in terms of how much it will cost to replace,
at the end of the year.......there is no total figure....of how much this crime is happening in $$$dollars value.... which can be expressed as one hundred thousand dollars or some crazy amount like that to give the seriousness of this problem more validity. with these totals known we can lobby as a group to increase
the fines and length of a prison vacation.

when i see ....250,000.00 dollar fines and five years in jail for copying
a freakin video.... compared to stealing someones fishing gear
right behind their back.....it really pisses me off.

was on the cape getting beach pass at ranger station,guy there was reporting someone stole cap off his pick up.has vs reel stolen from ups depot in indiana(sad part did'nt have enough insurance).son and friend left wallets etc in truck fished and came back,someone used jimmy bar and stole wallets,state police said its been going on for awhile.alot of people driving arround looking to steal,quick tag sale or flea market sale.