A Christmas Message & Reviewing the Year of "AI"

Is it just me or has 2025 whizzed by faster than any year before it? I mean I still had some decorations from last year's Christmas that I kept procrastinating on taking down, always telling myself "the year is still young", only to find myself taking it down yesterday as I hung the new Christmas decorations. I don't care what the calendar says, shadowy characters in the government have certainly compressed 2025 into 4 months only, thinking no one would notice!!

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This year saw no major changes in the big three Shimano, Daiwa, and Okuma, while the two conglomerates had some action; Quantum was reasserted as the serious gear arm of Rather Outdoors group with the announcement of two new models, Merit and Cabo, to be added to its relaunched spinning lineup, while Sycamore Partners owned Pure Fishing seems to have emerged from its debt issues after successfully restructuring that debt. The absence of Pure Fishing from ICAST sparked rumours of an impending sale, but nothing has panned out so far. Although being owned by a private equity firm makes a future sale a strong possibility in my opinion, since equity firms usually have no interest in any specific business and they just buy them to reorganise then sell them at a profit.

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All of that were standard affairs, but what was not standard at all was 2025 marking the year of the entry of "artificial intelligence" slop into the fishing world. I put it in quote marks because while I must call it this in order for you to understand what I'm referring to, I believe it to be a misnomer that doesn't reflect reality, at least for now. The word "intelligence" implies an independent capacity to create, to reason, to engage abstraction, and to apply knowledge in order to deduce new information that wasn't available before. Artificial intelligence, henceforth appreviated "AI", is incapable of any of this in its current form, and I rather view it as an aggregator and organiser of pre-existing information reworked into the required output format, be it textual, a drawing, a video, etc. It has no creative or deductive capacity outside of rehashing what's already out there, and by stripping this away from different models via insistent prompting with unfamiliar arguments and fresh analogies, I managed to corner them into concluding such absurd stuff as the best marriage would be between a brother and a sister and that left-handed people should never be in positions of authority. Ridiculous, but I chose these extreme ends to prove a point because they are objectively and resoundingly rejected by any real intelligence. 

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Not to stray too far, I became aware of the invasion of AI slop into our sport when readers began including bad information in their emails. The first time, I believe, was a message to the effect of "I just ordered a Shimano Vanford because I always wanted a reel made in Japan", then he proceeded to ask me what to spool it with. In my reply I included the correction that it's not manufactured in Japan and asked who told him that, and he answered that his AI app gave him that information. Another reader was enquiring on how to maintain his 2021 Certate SW without disturbing the  mag-sealed bearing at the handle's opening, I asked if he installed it as a custom job because this reel does not have them, but he replied that it comes standard according to AI apps that he consulted, which of course is completely wrong. These are just two quick examples, but in total I must have received ~60 messages containing bad information given by AI in 2025, and the rate of these occurrences is increasing and I think we haven't seen the worst of it yet.

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To see what exactly was happening I had a quick look at three leading AI platforms, and indeed they fit my earlier summary of what AI actually is;

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Chat GPT gives a decent answer, but it didn't create any new information. Rather it aggregated existing information created by real human intelligence and put them into freshly formatted sentences, here using my site as a primary source.

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Google's Gemini gives another great answer in descriptive sentences that it just composed, but the information contained in these sentences are an aggregation of what human minds have already created, again using the reviews published here to source it.

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Grok answers correctly. Did it generate that information itself?

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Nope, it constructed the unique sentences of the answer, but the core information they deliver pre-existed, in this case drawn from the reel's review here since I had written the answer in it.

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But what if the answer isn't something that humans have already come up with? I did another round, this time going after a bit of information that I know I didn't publish before;

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Google's Gemini says the 2013 Stella SW in size 4000 had carbon drag.

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So did Grok, which should inspire a great deal of confidence in the answer, right? Two major AI platforms with hundreds of billions of investments seem very sure.

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Chat GPT is even more sure that it's a carbon drag, and it even volunteers a bit of admonishment to any naive notion that it's made of felt or any such nonsense.

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Except that it is indeed felt, something I know from personal first hand experience, but just for you to be sure here is a photo I found of a disassembled 2013 Stella SW 4000.

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Notice what AI did NOT say? It did not say "I don't know" or "I don't have this information". After spending a good amount of time testing AI's capabilities and limitations, I personally think that the models are designed to avoid saying "I don't know" in order not to send the user seeking one of the competing platforms, and instead when they can't find credible information created by human minds they fabricate an answer. Even worse, they don't always know what credible sources are. For example sites like Quora are always scanned by AI models for answers, except that it is my belief that Quora is filled with questions that AI asked then AI answered, something that Quora does in order to come up whenever anyone asks any search engine for anything. This creates a hilarious situation in which AI fabricates questions and comes up with sloppy answers to them on sites such a Quora and Reddit, then major AI models consult that AI slop and create even sloppier answers out of it in a cycle of doom that very much fits our doomed times.

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Readers' messages continued to bring in terrible news, where to my absolute horror I learned that engagement-farmers have been including fishing in their trash AI videos scam. Some background  first; for roughly two years I've been seeing true crime videos in my feed with sensationalist titles to the effect of "Grim ending to the 12 years old bride" or "Impregnated by both her husband's son and his father she did the unthinkable", always with thumbnails of beautiful women next to sinister characters and the spammy big red arrows pointing to supposed important details in the thumbnail. Those videos were getting millions of views and several thousands of comments from people expressing their heartbreak or shock or satisfaction with the swift justice delivered, except they were all fake crimes that never happened, and the photos of people and crime scenes were all AI generated. 

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True crime was the most popular genre because of its global appeal, but I also spotted those trash AI videos on travel, best product (top 2025 laptops, top 2025 phones, etc), as well as supposed history with titles sounding something like "fate of women in the conquered city was worse than death" or "they regretted sending nurses with the army", again with tantalising thumbnails generated in the style of middle ages paintings depicting crying women and girls in positions implying nudity and violation by evil looking soldiers. 

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I reported that AI garbage whenever I came across it on any social media platform, but it never crossed my mind that it would expand to fishing. This business is all about engagement and views to generate money for those engagement farmers, and fishing is such a tiny niche compared to murder stories or electronics shopping. Apparently I was wrong, mainly because I overestimated the amount of time and effort those farmers needed to put into whatever category they wanted to spam. Just a few clicks instructing the software to fabricate "top 10 reels in 2025" or similar, and in seconds they'd have a clip of web pictures spliced with stock fishing footage that are either available without copyrights or completely generated, along with a voice speaking in perfect American accent, leading viewers to believe they're listening to an experienced Texan or North Carolinian fisherman when in reality they're watching nonsensical slop composed by AI models in a Bangladeshi engagement farm.

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Initially, reporting those channels would get them manually reviewed by the social media platform administrators who'd then delete them, but lately the tides have changed. I would report them on Facebook only to get a response that they don't go against community standards, then the CEO of Youtube came out in support for AI content;

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Apparently they weighed the concerns of the biggest content creators against the huge ad revenue those AI videos generate for them, and concluded that the traffic on videos by hard working creators can't match the thumbnail of a screaming Constantinople blonde bent over with a long line of foreign soldiers behind her and big red arrows pointing between their legs as if people needed further assurance of the contents!

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Not to turn this brief Christmas message into a deep dive on the subject AI trash, something I might actually write specifically about once the situation becomes less fluid and that spam takes more resilient forms, but here is a quick example that I found just now simply by typing a few key words, of what I personally believe to be an AI tackle channel, a part of the beginning of a comeback now that platforms will no longer delete them;

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321,000 views for only those top 4 videos, at an average of 3 dollars paid per 1000 views these videos alone got the farmers almost one thousand US dollars. One imagines that each farming group has tens of channels on various subjects, collectively sending them a large stream of cash, all in return for nothing.

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Even the channel's banner is AI generated nonsense. These models can't yet draw a fishing reel that looks remotely authentic, because of their complex shape and the far smaller availability of examples to index compared to photos of humans, buildings, cars, animals, etc.  

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Scanned the comments quickly, all from fishermen who think they're watching real content, and only spotted a single comment that realised just how nonsensical the content is. It pains me that anglers would believe obvious fiction because it comes from what they believe is an authoritative source, something I've been pushing against for decades. It's understandable that I'd fight to convince people that actual representatives of large tackle companies are lying to hide the failures I highlighted in their products, but I can't believe that they'd still trust random information whose source is completely unknown to them just because it's packaged in sleek videos. Be vigilant folks, and stop assuming that the entire world is as well-meaning as our small circle of outdoors enthusiasts.

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Closer to home, 2025 was a productive year for me. The Top Reels' page was continually updated and refreshed, converted more older reviews originally made for PC into the responsive phone-friendly format, and while I'm still away from my target of responding to every message within 48 hours I certainly did better this year, bringing the average wait to slightly more than 72 hours, except for when I'm travelling.

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Speaking of travel, I narrowly averted a disaster when the utterly useless lame lizards of British Airways once again lost my luggage, this time containing 4 reels and a trove of line and lures as well as an extremely expensive custom spool. Spent some dark days and nights, obsessively refreshing the screen to see if they've found it or stuck on the phone being given contradicting information and fake assurances that seemed to stem straight from the agent's butts on the spot.

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By the grace of God I had taken the most expensive reels in my hand luggage, despite knowing that they'll get me stopped and grilled at security, which exactly is what had just happened minutes before I was cleared to repack and took this photo at Heathrow. Fun fact, US borders always recognise reels on the X ray machines and never bother me, maybe because Americans fish a lot, but the Brits, Germans, and Italians always divert my bag from the X ray to the manual search area and swab the reels for explosives. Anyhow, a week later I was reunited with the lost bag without even as much as an apology from the absolute waste of space British Airways dummies, and keping the new Saltiga & Stella SW in my cabin bag might have spared me a fatal heart attack. Thinking that I might have lost them would've been crushing, not only for the money spent on them, but more importantly for the long hours of offshore fishing I had put them through which would require another year to replicate. When it's time to sit and review a reel I need to see how actual operation affected them during the entire testing period, and if I had to buy new reels I would've had to do it all over again from the beginning.

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And testing these two was actually the highlight of my work in 2025. In the past I tested Stellas and Saltigas independently in each model's release year, using memory or notes to compare them, but the simultaneous release this time meant that I could compare them side by side on the same waters against the same fish and feel the differences in real time. It was an unprecedented pleasure for me, and I can't wait to tell you all about it. Anyhow, having done the first phase of offshore work overseas, I fished them thoroughly back home from beaches and shores.... 

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I even kept them in the car at all times, one in the glove box and the other in the centre console, to squeeze every minute of fishing I could get out of them. If I'm going somewhere and see some action around a bridge, I'd park and pull the reels and cast plastics for whatever free time I have. Paid a severe price for this spontaneity though....

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Stopping to fish randomly without having protective clothing on or being covered in bug spray meant that I got savaged and almost consumed alive by the demonic bugs known as "no-see-ums", which I consider to be the lowest and most evil forms of life on earth, even a step below British Airways employees. I hate those no-see-ums with intensity, and if a nuclear war ever erupts and ends all life on earth I'll die a happy man knowing that those satanic bugs are all dead as well, hopefully a slow agonising death and not an instantaneous one like all other creatures. I digress though.... Still have more offshoring to do, but certainly you'll get full reviews in 2026 which I can already tell will be unlike anything I've ever written. I've already started testing the template for the reviews' page, and took a screenshot of it to prove it....

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See, I'm taking it seriously and not being my usual lazy self! 

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Speaking of unprecedented, in 2025 I wrote my first multi-page article on the time I spent in breathtaking Japan, which I've finally managed to complete and upload in full just days ago here, and I'm genuinely pleased with your reception of it. It wasn't only you, fishermen, who found it entertaining, but I also heard from many people who don't fish but have either visited Japan or plan to visit it, and we exchanged tips and banter. I've even received a message from a Japanese woman who laughed at my infatuation with the Osakan cuties and said that maybe she'd introduce me to her single sister if I ever go back! Of course I assumed that she's joking, because had I believed that she might be remotely serious I'd have installed AI on this lousy site then abandoned it and moved to Japan, and you'd be getting reviews that look like this;

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Alright, this is absolutely nasty and inappropriate and I'm truly ashamed of myself, but having spent 10 minutes making it there is no way I'm deleting it now. Every day I wake up and promise myself that I'll finally act like a grown-up, but then something clicks in my defective brain and I act on my childish instincts. I will do better in the future. Promise.

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Finally, this year I reviewed the Okuma Tesoro, an article that's been two years in the making as I put this new reel through its paces systematically, and with this more fog was removed from the backlog photo I playfully posted in 2023's message. It will be a great day when I finally finish those delayed projects, which would constitute a symbolic turning of the page on the pandemic and its disruption.

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I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a most wonderful start of 2026, and hope that these glorious days will bring you immense joy and warmth. As we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour I pray that he will protect you and your loved ones, and if you do not believe in him now I hope that you will in this upcoming year. I promise you that you are more precious than you believe, and that your conscience and the love you feel for your children and parents and wife is not a chemical reaction resulting from an arbitrary agglomeration of hydrogen and helium void of intrinsic value. You, them, and everything you feel are of infinite value because a loving God created you in his image. May he bless you and your families, and may he save and protect our nations and civilisation. As always I leave you with a lovely piece of Christmas music that I selected, and hope you'll enjoy it....

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Cheers

Alan Hawk

December, 15th, 2025

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