‘Fool-a-Fish’ hooks angler imagination

If you’re anything like me, and by that I mean someone who enjoys fishing for trout and salmon on Maine’s beautiful rivers and lakes, your thoughts are probably turning toward the open-water season that starts in less than a month.

Perhaps you’ve been flipping through the fishing catalogs that have been arriving in the mail lately, drooling over all the fancy new rods, reels, lures and other assorted paraphernalia that all but guarantee that you’ll catch more fish this season than you ever have before.

We anglers are like golfers that way, crazy about gear, always on the lookout for that new, indispensable piece of equipment that we believe will make us better at our favorite sport. The problem, of course, is that most gear is intended more to fool fishermen into spending money than to fool fish into taking the bait.

But there’s a guy out in Washington who has developed something that he swears will help us catch more fish, as much as three or four times the number we’ve caught in the past.

When I read about this revolutionary new product, which is getting a lot of press out West, I felt compelled to pass along the information to the Maine fishing community. I’m always willing to help my fellow anglers have more satisfying outdoors experiences, unlike some fishermen I know.

“This is a new way to fish,” said the product’s inventor, a physician and angler named Milan Jeckle.

Dr. Jeckle’s invention, you see, is not the latest hot new lure to come along. It’s a chemical formula that is sprayed on a lure, a fly or bait, instantly transforming it into a … well, to use the doctor’s own words, into a “flashing disco ball.”

That’s right, one blast of “Fool-a-Fish,” which Jeckle makes in his kitchen, and your lure will glow in the depths like a Chernobyl minnow, attracting hungry fish from half a mile away. No, it’s not radioactive, but rather a nontoxic chemical solution that contains titanium dioxide, the stuff found in sunscreens. When sprayed on a lure or bait, Jeckle contends on his Web site, the formula dries to form a slightly white coating that is highly reflective of ultraviolet light. While humans see in three colors – red, yellow-green and blue – fish and birds see a fourth color in the ultraviolet range, which shows up as a white glow that’s invisible to humans.

In other words, suggests Dr. Jeckle, just spritz a sewn-on smelt with this potion and it will shine to the feeding fish as if it were “coated with 1000s of tiny mirrors.” Dust your dry fly with it and the good doctor promises it will float down the river like a tiny lighthouse, beckoning every trout in the neighborhood with its dazzling iridescence.

If you’re a fishing traditionalist, perhaps you’re thinking right about now, “Hey, that sounds downright unnatural, so where can I get some of the ingenious stuff by opening day?” And who would blame you? Who among us hasn’t secretly longed for something that could turn our mundane lures into brilliantly flashing disco balls, allowing us to catch fish after fish while the other anglers around us just stare in wonder at our extraordinary skills?

After all, it’s probably the only indispensable item we don’t have in our tackle boxes.