Alpha Blog

Buy with Confidence:

If you buy a fishing rod from Alpha Angler and it doesn’t meet or exceed your expectations,send it back for a full refund, return shipping included.  We tend to brag with confidence about our products, but it’s for good reason… every one is a labor of love.    The truth is we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is!!!  If you buy one and don’t like it, send it back.  We got you covered.

Flailing Accountants:

We know that buying a fishing rod without first holding it in your hand isn’t always easy.  In fact, we tried to implement a “try before you buy” policy where we’d ship the rod before you actually had to pay for it.  Every time an angler has gotten a hold of an Alpha Angler rod the reaction has been awesome.  So why not just send one to you first, with confidence?  Right…  Unfortunately, our accountants hit the fraud panic button and went into a version of anaphylactic shock at the mention of the idea (can’t really blame them these days.)

Not Afraid:

To be honest, what’s the harm in a few people disliking our rods and sending them back?  To truly build the best products, we must accept all forms of feedback, good or bad.  So we’re not afraid.  Try us out, and we’ll either earn your trust, or attempt to fix what you don’t like. 

What’s in it for me?:

Glad you asked.  Alpha Angler isn’t just a fishing rod company, we’re a people company.  It takes anglers to critique, design, reform and demand what we build.  In this world though, everything is going online and interactions with people ain’t like they used to be.  Maybe for us, producing products that require 100% angler feedback is the answer to this new world of online interaction.    

So buy with confidence, and let us know what you think.  You’re going to get the very best we can build, at the very best price we can offer.  No retail markup, no gimmicky “buzz words”, no cheap components… just awesome fishing rods that really perform. 

Email Testimonials:

Here are the last few responses we've gotten from recent customers...

Jake - sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Wanted to give it some work before I got back to you with an opinion. What can I say, love it. Great strength, great bend to the rod, and love the sensitivity that I get with it. Feel like I can feel everything that goes on around the lure. Great rod, very satisfied!!!

- Jim – St.Louis – Alpha DSR

I gotta tell you that your normal rebound is the best freakin’ glass rod I've ever used. I can cast a mile with that bad boy, literally nearly unspooling my reel every cast. Most of my Havasu fish came on that rod. 

- Shawn O – Brewster WA – Alpha Rebound 

I put the Rebound to the test cranking for some green ones last night.  I think I’m in love.

- Josh – Willis TX – Alpha Rebound

My rod was just dropped off my goodness it is absolutely perfectly balanced and light as a feather I can see this being one of my favorite rods amazing work!!!

-Brandon – Vermont – Alpha DSR

Alpha Angler Zilla rod played a huge role in catching the winning fish. I skipped a 1/2 oz. swim jig paired with a 6" swimbait trailer out the other side of a wide boat dock platform and the fish bit right as the lure was coming back into the shade. I do not own another rod that allows me to skip and roll cast heavier baits as accurately, with the horsepower to get them away from cover in a hurry. This rod is legit and extremely versatile.

- Tag Watson- Bellingham - Alpha Zilla

Theories and beatings:

We at Alpha have multiple theories about bass fishing and the intricacies associated with this sport.  Most of the time, I think fishermen build theories about their pea-brained foes to ensure they remain sane during the chase.   In certain cases though, there are theories that are worthy of further explanation.  In this case, I believe the Alpha staffers have refined a theory that will help you land more fish.

It’s called the theory of Felt Pressure and Reaction, and it goes like this:  The reaction of a fish after it’s hooked is equal and opposite to the amount of pressure that is applied.  Here me out as I explain further.  

Clausen's Shakey-Head Clue:

Many years ago I was watching an interview with Luke Clausen and some talking head.  The interviewer was flabbergasted at Luke’s “confidence” in utilizing light line and spinning rods around docks.  At this point, Luke had won the Forest Wood Cup and made a few million more skipping a shakey-head under docks.  His response really went something like this.  The harder you pull on a hooked fish, the harder they’ll fight back.  If you just keep pressure on them, most of this time they’ll swim free of the dock and tire out. 

Slugfest:

Starting when we were infants, my little brother and I would exchange slugs to the shoulder on an almost constant basis.  Even now, 30 some years later, the chance of a random shoulder bruising when it’s least expected is always a possibility.  The more painful and surprising a slug was, the more nuclear the response from the recipient. 

It seems like bass react in a similar manner.  When you blast them with 20lb test and an heavy flipping stick, they go berserk and start jumping or racing for nasty cover.  It’s like you punched them in the shoulder, unexpectedly, and now they’re tackling you in a church parking lot….  (That really did happen, much to my poor mother’s disdain.)

Mule Meat:

A few years ago, I was heaving a chatterbait around in a tournament on the Columbia River on our glass cranking rod, the Rebound.  Somewhere at the end of a cast, a strait mule (9.02lbs) ate the chatterwagon and the fight was on.  The problem was that I didn’t think it was a big fish, because it wasn’t fighting that hard. 

My fishing partner asked how big I thought it was, and if I needed the net.  As I looked back over my shoulder to tell him the fish didn’t feel big and not to worry about the net, the mule came to the top and rolled around.   I didn’t see it, but my fishing partner did, and he proceeded to blow both windshields off the boat trying to get the net. 

I don’t think Mrs. Mule was super concerned about the situation until our eyes met near the boat.  We were both surprised, and I was unprepared.  Because she didn’t fight very hard, I didn’t bother to re-position the boat away from the cover we were fishing… dumb.  Her response was explosive; as she ran under the boat so fast my rod hit the gunnel causing her to jump strait up on the other side… right into a waiting net.  I got blessed on that occasion, but it really taught me something about how a fish reacts to applied pressure. 

At first, that fish was mildly inconvenienced with the constant tugging on her jaw, and she wasn’t convinced the situation was dire until she actually saw the boat and my stupid look of disbelief. 

Land More with Glass:

In the past, the biggest selling point for a fiberglass rod was the ability to keep fish from pulling off of treble-hooks.  Obviously, that theory is true, but there’s another aspect I never thought about.  Fish that fight against the Rebound usually fatigue quicker than those caught on a heavier graphite rod.  As fish fight against the glass they deal with a constant, even pressure that just wears them out with less incident.  

This theory doesn’t always hold true, especially with warm water smallmouth, but there’s definitely a noticeable difference in landing percentage (much higher.)  So much so, that many of our pro-staffers have switched to S-Glass for almost all moving baits (spinnerbaits/chatterbaits/rattletraps/crankbaits…)

Thanks for reading.  Hopefully this theory will help you land more fish.  In future blogs, we’ll dig into how S-Glass can generate more bites with moving baits.

Post any questions in the comment section and we'll do our best to answer!!!

Check out the Rebound here.

The Questions:

In our world, everyone wants to be different.  It seems, not long ago, that everyone just wanted to fit in… but now we’re all trying to be different.   After our “Roots” video hit the social world, the comments and questions started flowing in, as expected.    It’s one thing to claim you’re different in a bass fishing video, but it’s another to explain how that difference really matters. 

For those of you who ask, “How are you any different than brand X?” here’s the Alpha spiel. 

The forced hand:

About a year ago, Alpha as a company started growing.  Despite our best efforts to keep the demand manageable, our core customers wanted more.  Anglers were winning events, cashing checks and catching fish on our products, which many of them helped shape.  We had a different approach to building rods and it was working.

This growth forced our hand, and we needed to decide where to take Alpha.  Because our rods were never intended for the mass retail market, we priced them without retail markup.  Some would say that $250 is a high price to pay for a fishing rod, to which I agree… unless the rod is manufactured domestically with the components and design of a much higher priced product. 

Because we never intended on selling in the retail market, we left our designers the freedom to utilize any blank and component in ways that are unconventional in the existing rod market.  This created rods that flat out performed, but had higher costs.  If we wanted to sell Alpha into retails stores, we would have to do one of two things:  raise prices, or reduce component quality.

You can image how simple that decision was.  We went the online direct route.

Buzz Words:

Probably the first difference you’ll notice about Alpha Angler, is that we’re avoiding the standard “buzz words.”  Unless we can completely explain how terms like “billion modulus” or “power wall” or “Titanium Coated Adamantium” is honestly going to help you catch more fish, then we won’t utilize them.  The truth is, after seven years of research into building rods, none of those buzz words really define anything but higher prices. 

Instead, we set out to totally understand what makes a rod “sensitive,” and trust me; it has less to do with the graphite modulus as it does with balance and design.     

That goes for split-grips, split reel seats, guide frames, power tapers and even cheese burgers.  The end result is always the sum of its design. 

The Point:

To provide an example of different, I’ll use the Alpha Angler Rebound.  Our crankbait machine is built on S2 grade fiberglass.  The “S” stands for “Structural Grade” fiberglass, which is different from the standard E-Glass, which is “Electrical Grade.” 

S-Glass is lighter and more sensitive than E-Glass, but it’s also 4x the price and hard to manufacture (which makes it fairly rare.)  When prototypes of the S-Glass Rebound were tested by our team, all other options were removed, despite their lower cost…  That’s what we mean by different. 

We made Alpha Angler a direct-to-consumer company so we can build the best rods at affordable prices, even if it mean using the more expensive and complex materials. 

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for our next couple blogs.  We’ll try to cover more about Alpha and our crazy fish catching theories and stories.  

Alpha Might Be New to You… 

Welcome to the Alpha Angler blog, and more importantly thanks for reading.  My plan is to explain who we are at Alpha, and more specifically “what are we doing here.”

We officially started Alpha in 2012, with the intention of building really, really good fishing rods.  Fishing 15-21 competitive events a year, the engineer inside of me started to ask questions about my fishing tools, like “how does this help me catch more fish.”  That’s really the crux of the situation when you boil it down, right?  From recreational to tournament anglers, how do we generate more bites and more importantly put them in the boat. 

History Lesson:

Before Alpha, I spent a decade working for a very successful outdoor hunting brand, where I learned a ton about building products for outdoorsmen.  For the purpose of this article, the most important thing I learned is this: the best products don’t come from a secluded think-tank of engineers and product designers hidden in the basement with incandescent blue lights.  The best products are always developed by the guys using them day in and day out.  That’s Alpha Angler’s program, our M.O. if you will.  We relentlessly hunted down every successful angler that would talk with us, and started picking their brains about winning techniques and rods.  The funny thing is that none of them declined the invitation to contribute, regardless of their current sponsorships.

Pop Quiz:

Over the past years we developed a system of making rods to solve problems for anglers.  For instance, what type of rod generates the most bites with a “chatterbait”, and more importantly why.  What is the best blank material for moving baits?  What is the difference between 30 ton and 24 ton graphite, and what does that really do for me?  Am I paying for technology, or just bling?  Why does this $500 rod feel so tip heavy…??  The list of questions goes on for hours, and we’ve asked everyone of them 100 times.

Direct to Consumer:

They say the best blog articles are shorter than the longer ones…  I don’t understand what that means, but for the purpose of this blog I’ll sum up what we’re doing with Alpha.  We’re making really, really good fishing rods, unconventionally.  We’ve researched every aspect of the fishing rod market, and we’re going to do things our way, the Alpha way. 

To keep costs down, we’re only going to sell direct to customer, no retailers.  This isn’t because we don’t like retail, it’s because we need to stay in constant communication with the anglers who use our products.  Retail adds a layer of customer interaction we can’t utilize because we can’t be in every retail outlet speaking with you.   

Brass Tacks:

Instead of pricing products with the retail markup included, we’ll skip that portion and give back to the customer in the form of lower prices for better products.  That provides an awesome freedom in how we build our products.  We can use any component, from any manufacture to build rods that are the very best… and we do.

One thing is for certain, we have a passion for fishing which is paramount in our mission to create great products.  You’ll see this characteristic in everything we do, from our Pro-Staffer’s to our product line to our social media content.   We plan on using this blog to educate and communicate, so please send feedback.  Thanks for reading, and more importantly, welcome to Alpha Angler.