Rethinking the Way We Fish: A Cleaner Solution for a Healthier Ocean

Apr 25, 2025

By David Erdly, Founder of Ebb N Flow Outdoors | EbbNFlowOutdoors.com

I built Ebb N Flow Outdoors because I love fishing. That's it. No grand mission statement when I started — just a guy who loves being on the water and wanted to build better gear than what I could find on the shelf. But the more time you spend on the water, the more you notice things. And one of the things I've noticed over the years is how much junk ends up in our water.

This post isn't a lecture. You already know plastic pollution is a problem. What I want to talk about is how we as anglers can do better — and how the gear choices we make actually matter more than we think.

The Angler's Plastic Problem

Every year anglers lose hooks, leave behind old line, break off lures, and yes — buy cheap plastic baits that disintegrate after two fish and end up on the bottom. I've been guilty of all of it. A bag of 10 soft plastics that falls apart after 3 bites means 7 pieces of plastic sitting on the bottom of your favorite lake or bay.

This is part of why I started stocking Z-Man baits at Ebb N Flow. Their ElaZtech material isn't just a marketing claim — it's legitimately 10X more durable than traditional plastics. You can get 8-10 fish on a single bait instead of 2-3. That's fewer pieces of plastic in the water, and fewer bags you're buying every season. Better for your wallet, better for the water.

What We're Doing Differently

Beyond the baits we stock, there are a few things we built into the Upgrade Jig Head lineup that I think matter:

  • Mustad USA hooks — Better steel means fewer broken hooks left in fish. A hook that bends or breaks is more likely to stay embedded and cause harm. We use quality hooks because they perform better AND because they cause less collateral damage when something goes wrong.
  • One head for multiple baits — The Upgrade Multi-Purpose Jig Head is designed to fish a ned, swimbait, jerk shad, or hover presentation — all with the same head. Fewer heads in your tackle box means fewer heads lost on snags. Consolidation matters.
  • Weedless options — The ATV Weedless and ATV Weedless Hover let you fish heavy cover with significantly fewer hangups and lost rigs. Every rig you bring back out of the water is one that's not sitting in the grass.

Small Habits That Add Up

I'm not going to pretend any of us will be perfect out there. You're going to lose rigs, you're going to leave behind line, you're going to snap off in heavy cover. But here are a few small habits I've picked up that help:

  • Pick up any line or packaging you see on the water, even if it's not yours
  • Switch to fluorocarbon or braided main line with fluoro leader — it sinks and is less likely to tangle wildlife than floating mono
  • Use durable soft plastics that last multiple fish instead of cheap ones that disintegrate
  • Use weedless presentations in heavy cover to reduce breakoffs
  • Pack out what you pack in — lure bags, bait wrappers, everything

The Water Is the Product

At the end of the day, the fishery is the product. Without healthy water, there are no fish. Without fish, there's no reason for any of us to be out there, and no reason for Ebb N Flow Outdoors to exist. I have a very selfish reason to care about clean water — I want to keep fishing it for the next 40 years.

So yeah, buy better gear, treat it well, bring it back out of the water when you can, and pick up a piece of trash on the way to the boat ramp. It's not complicated. It's just good stewardship of the thing we love.

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