For our day of fishing on Lake Erie, we had Ford remove the regular SYNC and navigation system in favor of the Ford Work Solutions computer (an $1195 option) and Tool Link system to allow us to use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags on our gear and make sure everything we needed for the trip was loaded in the truck before we headed out. Driving 20 miles to the boat to realize you forgot the cooler with snacks and drinks is never fun and Tool Link should be able to prevent that. We were easily able to tag our gear, name each item, and tell exactly what was loaded in the bed. Everything worked as it should except the metal ammo box, which interfered with the RFID system and never registered as being in the bed.
Ironically enough, our test of the Cabela's Edition Super Duty did not include any towing. The boat we used for a day of walleye fishing was already at the dock to allow an early start to our day on the lake. Actually, most of the fishing gear was on the boat, too, so we looked a little foolish with a gigantic truck and little more than a pair of fishing poles in the bed. Lake Erie looked ideal for a day of 'eye fishing, but the wind quickly changed directions and the waves started rolling in. We decided to try our luck with some inland trout fishing instead of suffering through a day of rain and increasing waves.
So we headed to Rockwell Springs Trout Club, in Castalia, Ohio, which is more like a golf course for fishermen than anything else. A limited number of members fish the stream, the lawn actually looks nice enough to be a golf course, and there's a clubhouse with great food and drink to cap off your day. It's quite a nice deal if you enjoy fly fishing.
Initially, angling at Rockwell Springs looked too easy. There is an abundance of trout in the club waters and the stream isn't terribly wide. Even a novice fly fisherman could toss a fly out and get it in front of a fish. But fly fishing is somewhat like driving in NASCAR--the theory is easy enough to understand, but the execution requires a substantial amount of finesse and skill. It took us a few hours to find the right fly and technique, but we eventually caught a few fish.
After a long day of casting, the crew cab truck's roomy interior was especially welcome for four adults and their delicate gear. The Ford Super Duty is incredibly quiet for a truck of this size and the diesel engine is very refined. With the windows up, it's difficult to tell you're in a diesel truck at all. A back-seat passenger kvetched that the air conditioning wasn't powerful enough to cool down the back of the truck, but that was the only complaint we heard. ...next page >>