FOR INTRAMUSCULAR INJECTION. CONTAINS TESTOSTERONE CYPIONANTE. ANDROGENIC HORMONE TESTOSTORONE.

When I first tried out for JV football I didn’t worry about blowing out a knee so much as going bald. At the time it seemed like almost every NFL and MLB player had a receding hairline and the leading theory was that wearing a helmet or baseball hat all the time caused hair loss. Yeah, that’s what it was. Just like all those stories about how baseballs were wrapped too tight and how the 220-pound kid worked really hard in the weight room in the offseason and put on 49 pounds of muscle.

I think about this as I’m sorting through the mother of all gear reviews, compiled by Alex Cerveniak for Midcurrent. It’s intense, pretty much covering everything new in fly fishing for 2011. I need a new 8-weight in a bad way, so I’m reading through all that is new, and about 3M Matrix Resin technology and nano-silica, which leads to this great explanatory article in Angling Trade.

I’m thinking, this is all well and good, but to what point is all this new improvement going to help me? I’m a self-taught caster, should I just take the time to learn the proper technique? Maybe the answer is to Live Strong and get with the program. Fuck, if golfers are doing it…

I’m thinking I’ll be able to cast a 5-pound dumbbell 200 feet and swing a 100-pound tarpon into the boat like an FL Wood pro does a one-pound bass. The drawback is the potential bacne and squeezing the innards out of any fish held out to the camera for a hero shot.

Either way, it’s not the new rod that’s going to make you better, it’s steroids.