Prototypes and Rumors

One of the coolest things about the FFR show is that you sometimes get a glimpse of stuff that isn’t available this year, and may not be available next year, but is coming *some time*. For instance, one of the major rod manufacturers let slip that they will be exploring some older rod building materials (I’m guessing fiberglass) in an upcoming lineup of mainstream rods. The slowest rods on the market now are really not that slow, meanwhile fiberglass in particular has gotten much lighter and speedier (and as always, it’s darn near unbreakable).
Buff Headgear has two sets of prototype Buff sun gloves here at the show; one for bluewater use and one for more conventional use. The prototypes are backed in ordinary Buff material–the UV-resistant kind–and they have palms similar to Foot Joy golf gloves. The bluewater model straps on to your wrist like a baseball hitter’s glove, and has padding and non-slip grippy material in the palms for hours-long fights with tunoids or marlin species. Meanwhile, the conventional gloves seem a little overbuilt for the present, again with full hand padding, but Buff acknowledged that their working prototype will probably get lighter before this product comes to market. The gloves are pretty slick; they are fingerless but have little backwards-facing pockets at the tips, so you can quickly take them off by hooking the fingers of your other hand into the pockets and pulling. It works very well.
Have questions about upcoming prototype products you may have heard rumors of? Share them in the comments section and we’ll try to get to the bottom of it.