Catching Bass At West Point Was Tough In My Club July Tournament

Last Sunday 14 members and guests of the Flint River Bass Club fished our July tournament at West Point. After 8.5 hours of casting, nobody had a limit and three people didn’t land a keeper. We weighed in 17 bass that totaled about 32 pounds.

A teenage guest of Rick Burns, Patrick Thomas, beat us all with two bass weighing 5.51 pounds and his 4.72 pound largemouth was big fish. Chuck Croft has four at 5.47 pounds for second, third was Gary Morrow with one bass weighing 3.95 pounds and my two at 3.79 pounds was good for fourth.

Fishing was tough for us but the West Georgia Bass Club, a buddy tournament trail out of LaGrange, had a tournament the same day. They had about 180 boats in the tournament and there were many teams with good catches. It took five bass weighing 17 pounds to win and at least 11 teams had more than 12 pounds.

I started fishing between the railroad bridge and Highway 109 bridge. They took off at about 6:20 AM and I saw only about ten boats headed down the lake. I stayed in that area all day and I guess that was a mistake. Most everybody in the West Georgia club went up the river. Maybe that is where I should have headed.

I started in the dark fishing a spinner bait on rocks but never got a bite. At 6:30 I was fishing a buzz bait and hooked a keeper, and it fell off as I tried to lift it into the boat. That gave me hope I could catch some fish on topwater but I never got another bite on top.

After the sun got over the trees I switched to a jig head worm and fished some rocks in about eight feet of water. I missed one bite but a little later, at 7:30 I hooked and landed a keeper spotted bass. At least I had one in the live well and would not zero.

I fished that place hard and a couple of more without catching anything then I ran to a rock pile where I caught seven or eight spotted bass a month ago. I fished it for 30 minutes without a bite, then just as I was about to leave, hooked and landed a bass that was close to three pounds. That fired me up and I stayed there for two more hours – without getting another bite.

With less than two hours to fish I hit several more spots but never caught another fish. It was a long, tough day for me and everyone else in the club. I thought my three pounder might have a shot at big fish but there were two others bigger than mine. Just my luck.

Saturday night is the July Sportsman Club tournament at Sinclair. The tournament will run, or ran by the time you read this, from 5:00 PM to 1:00 AM. I hope the fish will bite better at night. At least the weather will be much more bearable.

2014 ICast

ICAST Underway On July 14
from The Fishing Wire

The doors of the show floor of ICAST/IFTD officially open this morning and the largest combined annual trade shows of the global fishing industry will be underway. Underway means a three day walking trek around the cavernous Orange County Convention Center and not the outdoor industry’s preferred location: Las Vegas.

Personally, I prefer Orlando, but I’ve been told that all the industry studies say I am clearly the minority opinion. Last night, my voice had a little more influence. The buyers and credentialed media vote for the best of hundreds of new products across a variety of categories, and our preview of the new products being showcased is the first official event of the show. The previews of products in their on-the-water testing mode aren’t really part of the event. And unlike SHOT, where manufacturers have been forced out of their more intimate previews for a single Media Day at the Range, it is still possible to get an invitation to see gear without having to stand in line with several hundred others.

There have been other earlier fishing trips and secret previews for some members of the media, but the vast majority of the local and regional media will really getting their first looks at the gear here in Orlando.

And that’s one reason the flight into Orlando was filled with pro tour anglers. As spokespersons for their sponsors they’ll be in the show booths, wearing their tournament jerseys and best smiles as they repeat a nearly endless chain of answers to questions about the latest products. Yesterday, they were enjoying the chance to sit in silence at the airport without being recognized. Until they leave ICAST that’s not an option.

For some, the crowds seem more challenging than the toughest tournament. Others have no problem shifting between their private/public personalities because they’re not really different at the show or on the water. That, FYI, isn’t always a good thing. Some are just difficult all the time, but you know what you’re getting, so you come prepared.

As far as new products, the fishing industry, like most of the rest of the world, is heavily invested in technology. That’s seen in everything from navigation systems evolved from military aviation to fish finding sonar and mapping technologies that might have changed the face of the world had it been available to naval forces a few decades ago.

And there are less obvious, but equally amazing descendants of military development, too. Fabrics are lighter, stronger and able to keep anglers warmer or cooler and protected from the dangers of UV radiation as needed along with lines with no memory, slick finishes and can be cast further with more sensitivity than you would thing possible.

Perhaps the biggest change is that the technological advances are coming in years -and sometimes months- instead of decades. That contributes to an almost ephemeral attitude concerning gear. For some, it’s tough to get excited about the “latest” of anything, because it may be gone as quickly as the mayfly hatch on a Montana trout stream.

For the manufacturers, it’s a realization that it’s essential to choose advances carefully. Otherwise, there’s the risk of either instantly obsolescing popular models with technology with little, if any, real longevity

Revo Beast

Revo Beast

Revo’s Beast (top) is designed to meet the challenge of throwing- and retrieving- today’s big rigs without burning out your reel. Others, like Lew’s newest reel, haven’t yet been seen, but have used clever pre-ICAST teases to build media interest. Jim Shepherd/OWDN photos.

Having seen some of the new gear, I have cast my votes for the various categories top picks. As an average angler, I’ve seen new things I believe will help me catch more fish- at prices that don’t require six figure incomes or tournament sponsors.

That’s good news for the growth of the sport. The industry isn’t just adding color combinations or cartoon figures to their gear and calling it children’s gear, they’re actually building gear that can make kids better anglers. Ditto the gear for ladies. And that’s recognition of the fact that everyone has to enjoy a sport to get families engaged.

Some of the new products have genuine promise. Other, like every other ICAST have subtle nuances that an average angler (like me) might not notice. Some, too, have only marketing changes or appear to be “solutions in search of problems”. Those one and go, but there’s plenty of new gear to get you excited about upping your came without breaking your budgets.

And there’s still the matter of guaranteeing access to public waters, reasonable fishing seasons and sustainable harvests and the problem of equitable allocations of resources to recreational fishing by the federal government. Those are industry-wide concerns and can’t be solved at a trade show, but must be addressed while we’re all together under a single very large roof.

But we’re going to try and capture the essence of the show as part of our promise to you: we’ll keep you posted.

–Jim Shepherd

Using Keys To Catching Lake Lanier Bass Book To Catch Bass

Keys To Catching Lake Lanier Bass works to help me catch bass.

The Outdoor Blast is next weekend, Friday through Sunday, at the Gwinnett Center in Duluth. I will be helping out at the Georgia Outdoor News booth where you can enter a drawing for a gun given away each hour of the show and pick up a free copy of the current magazine, so that booth should be very busy.

I will also have my two Map of the Month books for sale at the booth. I have put together books for Lake Lanier and Clarks Hill that have a Map of the Month article for each month of the year. Each article has a map showing ten good spots to fish for bass that month, tips on how to fish them, what baits to use and other information from a good fisherman on the lake.

Last week I went to Lanier to try to catch some fish and make a promo video for the book. The video will be running on a laptop on the counter at the Blast. The books are available as downloadable eBooks and I also sell them on CD in either Microsoft Word or PFD format. From the CD you can print out your own copy of the whole book, or print one chapter at a time to take to the lake with you.

I was happy to be able to put in a GPS waypoint from one of the articles for Lanier, go to it and find the brush pile there. I rigged a drop shot worm like suggested, with the color worm and weight sinker the article says works best. And I caught some fish off that hole and others in the book.

Lanier is a tough lake to fish if you don’t go regularly and keep up with what the fish are doing. The information in my book really helped me.

The 2014 ICAST Show Was July Was July 14 – 18 in Orlando

ICAST Gets Rolling in Orlando

By Frank Sargeant, Editor
from The Fishing Wire

It’s the Greatest Show on Earth if you happen to be in the fishing industry

The annual ICAST/IFTD show is underway in Orlando, Florida, this week, drawing literally thousands of companies from across the globe to the marketplace in hopes of selling their products to the buyers and retailers who will then offer it to anglers.

Some of the products are a bit doubtful, to be sure-there are some that solve problems that for most anglers do not exist, others that cost so much relative to their function that they’re simply not marketable on a large scale.

But every year there are some big winners, and lots of small companies hoping to become big ones with one or two great products that will start to grow them towards being the next Berkley or Rapala or Shimano.

The event gets underway with the annual State of the Industry meeting, and this year the news was generally pretty good. According to American Sportfishing Association chief Mike Nussman, the show is now bigger than ever despite the competition from electronic media for the youth market. Nussman credits both the location of the show in Orlando, closer to the east coast tackle industry, and the combination of the ICAST show with the Fly Fishing Trade Show the last two years with the increase.

Gregg Wollner, Executive Vice President of Rapala and ASA board chairman, said in his presentation that 4.1 million new anglers fished for the first time last year, and 42 percent of them were women. He also said Hispanic anglers were on the increase, indicating two underserved markets that promise future growth to the industry.

Nussman said that some 40 million anglers have a $125 billion annual impact on the U.S. economy, spending not only on tackle and gear but also on boats, motors, tow vehicles, fuel, and motels and restaurant meals. But he said, to maintain industry success, everyone in the business will have to become conservation-minded in the future, as well as being open to seeking new markets through partnerships with those outside the industry-he pointed to an on-going ASA partnership with Disney World as an example.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, a business-friendly governor, also spoke briefly at the breakfast, pointing out that of the 100-million or so tourists that visit the Sunshine State, a great many of them fish Florida’s waters. Scott has been one of the Gulf Coast governors pushing for state management of red snapper in recent months due to the very controversial management decisions being made by NOAA.

We’ll take a closer look at many of the products introduced here in the days and weeks ahead, and some of them are truly mind-blowing, including an auto-deploy trolling motor from Minn Kota and a system from Lowrance that will let anglers control both the outboard and the trolling motor from the electronics, giving an electronic “third hand”.

General observations from my first day walkthrough are that kayaks, inflatables and paddle boards are becoming ever more popular, both because they’re inexpensive and because they’re versatile-as well as leaving no environmental footprint. There seems to be more ice-fishing gear than ever, electronics are getting bigger and more capable and more expensive-as well as smaller and cheaper in some cases–and there seem to be more companies taking advantage of pro anglers expertise, both in bass and walleye fishing-or maybe more pro anglers are getting sponsor-savvy. There are loads of new top-end reels, and also loads of very affordable entry level combos in all the genre’s, including fly casting.

In short, ICAST this year, like every year, is loaded with candy and ice cream for the angler-I can’t wait for tomorrow to sample some more.

Is An Alaska Halibut Weighing 480 Pounds A World Record?

480-pound halibut landed in southeast Alaska-but it’s not a world record

Editor’s Note: Occasionally, our colleagues in other publications share great stories with us. Today, we’re sharing a great one with you by Andy Martin, a field reporter for California’s Western Outdoor News. Our thanks to WON editor Bill Karr for sharing this one with our readers.
from The Fishing Wire

GUSTAVUS, ALASKA–A Southern California man caught a giant Pacific halibut in Southeast Alaska last week that rivals the sport fishing world record.

Jack McGuire of Anaheim was fishing with Capt. Rye Phillips aboard the Icy Rose on July 3 when he hooked and landed a 95-inch, 482-pound halibut near the mouth of Glacier Bay. The barndoor halibut would likely challenge the 459-pound International Game Fish Association (IGFA) world record caught in 1996 by Jack Tragis if it had not been shot and harpooned.

McGuire, 77, was fishing out of Alaskan Anglers Inn in Gustavus for the Fourth of July holiday week. Phillips took McGuire and three other passengers aboard his charter boat to one of his favorite big fish spots in Icy Straight near Lemesurier Island in about 130 feet of water.

The giant halibut hit an octopus fished just off of the bottom. It took off on a long run after the size 16/0 Eagle Claw circle hook dug in, before McGuire was able to ease it off the ocean floor, thanks mainly to the two-speed Shimano TLD II 30 two-speed reel he was using. After a 30-minute give-and-take battle, Phillips spotted the halibut below the boat and let McGuire know it was legal size. In Southeast Alaska, anglers on charter boats can keep one halibut per day as long as it is less than 44 inches, or more than 76 inches.

“It was giant,” Phillips said. “We knew right away it was over 76 inches, but we didn’t know it was going to be bigger than the world record.”

Like he does with all big halibut that anglers decide to keep, Phillips subdued the fish with a .410 shotgun, and then harpooned it. Most guides kill the giant halibut before bringing them onto their boats because of how dangerous they are if they are flopping on the deck. Some anglers have been seriously injured by trophy-size halibut.

482 Pound Halibut

482 Pound Halibut

Jack McGuire, 77, of Anaheim, California, stands next to the 95-inch, 482-pound halibut he caught July 3 near Gustavus, Alaska, while fishing with Capt. Rye Phillips of Alaskan Anglers Inn. Photo courtesy Western Outdoor News with permission.

Phillips and two of the other customers used gaff hooks to pull the mammoth halibut over the side of the boat. At first the fish’s gills got stuck on the rail, but after a second attempt they were able to drag the halibut aboard.

Phillips immediately measured the fish, letting him know it was a potential world record. Unfortunately, the fish would not qualify because it was shot and harpooned. Phillips also assisted McGuire by grabbing the line and lifting on the rod during the battle.

McGuire caught the halibut on 100-pound-test Tuf Line and a 240-pound nylon leader. Phillips had rigged the rods with heavy gear because he was targeting trophy-size fish that day.

The massive halibut drew quite a crowd at the Gustavus dock. Dozens of people gathered to see the fish hoisted up for photographs before Phillips filleted it for McGuire. The halibut yielded nearly 200 pounds of boneless, skinless fillets.

Just a week earlier, Phillips, who played baseball at Western Oregon University and lives in Brookings, Ore., during the winter, put a customer into a 275-pound halibut.

Gustavus, located 45 miles west of Juneau, is a relatively unknown halibut hot spot. It typically has the largest average size of halibut caught in Alaska, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game stats, and the small charter fleet fishing out of the Gustavus dock brings in dozens of 200-plus-pound fish each season.

Steve Brown, owner of Alaskan Anglers Inn, said each week many customers catch halibut topping 100 pounds. Last year, when anglers could keep halibut 68 inches or bigger, which weigh roughly 165 pounds or more, anglers fishing at his lodge landed more than 50 of the trophy-size fish. More than two dozen of those were over 200 pounds, including five over 300 pounds.

— Andy Martin
Martin is a Field Reporter for Western Outdoor (www.wonews.com)

Finding Survival Food As A Kid

There are a lot of TV shows about surviving in the wilderness running right now. They have a variety of themes, from a father and son reenacting possible problems hikers, fishermen and hunters may get into and get lost to a couple put into a wilderness setting without anything, including clothes. All these shows take me back to growing up wild in Georgia, where we often tried to “live off the land” for a few days.

We were never really in a survival situation since home was just a few minutes away, but we liked to think we had to find food and shelter to survive. Since my friends and I lived in a rural area we were used to gardening, eating anything we could kill or catch and using nature. But being out in the woods pretending we had to survive was fun, especially knowing the comforts of home were close.

Our survival tools were our trusty BB guns and later .22 rifles and .410 shotguns, so getting squirrels, birds and sometimes rabbits was no problem. There are very few kinds of birds I have not eaten at some point but a few, like redbirds and bluebirds were off limits. And we never tried buzzards, for obvious reasons.

All kinds of plants were eaten, too. There was a weed that I never knew the name that grew all over the fields, and its roots were crunchy and had a nutty flavor. We usually ate them raw but often put them in squirrel and bird stew. One of us always had a mess kit along with its fry pan, pot, cup, knife, fork and spoon so we could cook things in a lot of ways.

Mushrooms grew wild but we were afraid to try them. We knew some were poison so we left all of them alone. But there were acorns, which tasted terrible, dandelions, poke weed and other plants we did eat. And hickory nuts were good if we could crack them open.

We never ate bugs and worms, we never got that hungry, but we did consider it. A few years ago on a trip up the Amazon River Linda and I took a tour of the jungle with a Brazilian military captain that taught survival skills to troops. He showed us a lot of different kinds of food from tarantula spiders to vines that held water.

At one point he cut a palm looking bush and shelled out a small nut. He said the nut, a palm nut, was edible and tasted like coconut. Then he split open the nut and showed us a white grub inside, saying protein was important and these grubs were good.

When he asked if anyone wanted to taste it I popped it into my mouth and bit down. It tasted like coconut. So I will eat worms and bugs, even if not starving to death. And I guess I would eat a buzzard if really, really, really hungry.

The branch provided several kinds of food but we didn’t try most of them. Crawfish were small and would not have made much of a meal but we knew we could eat them. And the small bream and catfish in the branch were so tiny we didn’t want to clean them. Under real survival situations both would make a good stew.

In the spring we even tried bird eggs. They were not bad boiled in branch water in our mess kit pots over a campfire. Since my family had 11,000 laying hens I usually packed some chicken eggs along to eat. That is not really survival but just keeping them whole taught ways to protect the food we found and how to handle it with care.

Our shelters were very simple lean-tos built by tying a sapling between two trees, leaning other sapling trunks against it and covering them with sweet gum branches with leaves. I doubt they would have stopped much rain but it was the best we could do with what we had, and we were proud of them.

One of the biggest problems folks on the survival shows have is making a fire, a necessity under survival conditions and for us boys in the woods. We tried rubbing sticks together, making sparks with flint and steel and using a magnifying glass. Nothing worked for us except the magnifying glass so we always had matches with us.

I spent hours dipping the heads of strike anywhere matches in melted wax to protect them from water. They were carried in a small box and could be counted on to produce a fire when scratched against a handy rock. I am not sure I could start a fire without the right tools but I know how it is supposed to be done.

Pretending to need to survive is fun but I don’t think I would want to do it under real conditions where my life might depend on my skills.

Why Are Animal Rights Fanatics Going Crazy and Facebook Removing Kendall Jones’ Pictures?

Animal rights fanatics get all worked up about a hunting trip and Facebook removes Kendall Jones’ pictures.
from The Fishing Wire

And finally – I wish it were a “finally” for these sorts of stories – a personal note on the brouhaha that erupted when 19 year old Kendall Jones posted harvest photos from an African safari.

Animal rights folks have succeeded in getting her photos pulled down on Facebook and they’re all fired up thinking they’ve scored a great victory of some sort.

They haven’t. But they’ve proven that the same irrational fear and overreaction that caused the Salem witch trials isn’t far beneath the surface in some people. Their celebrating the digital lynching of a 19 year old girl whose only crime is liking to hunt and having the money to pursue her passion- legally- is yet another reason we all should be afraid for our country.

When an entity like Facebook – which has recently admitted it jacked around with the emotions of their users by essentially using them as lab rats to study how people respond to news -is so concerned with political correctness that it pulls down hunting photos, it’s time to be concerned.

The lynch mob isn’t extinct in America -it’s just re-labeled as online campaigning for causes, allowing the nameless, faceless, and the gutless to call names, throw digital rocks and then drop back under their rocks until the next time they get a chance to take a shot at someone.

It’s about time someone said “enough” and counter-attacked. But we wouldn’t want to be called mean-spirited, would we?

Fishing Lake Weiss In June

Lake Weiss is usually a great lake to fish in June with lots of quality bass in shallow water, even in the heat, so the Spalding County Sportsman Club scheduled our June tournament there last weekend. We should have known fishing would be tougher than normal. Sam Smith said during practice on Friday he talked with several local bass fishermen and all told him fishing was the worst it had been all year.

In the tournament 12 members and guests fished for nine hours on Saturday and nine more on Sunday in extreme heat. There was little breeze either day, making the heat even worse. We landed 63 keepers weighing about 94 pounds. There were six five-fish limits and no one zeroed for the two days.
I got lucky and caught a limit both days. My ten keepers weighed 16.93 pounds for first. Russell Prevatt had the best one day catch with a limit on Sunday weighing 12.5 pounds and his eight weighing 16.51 pounds for the two days was a close second. Sam Smith had nine bass weighing 13.04 for third and fourth was Mickey McHenry with seven bass at 10.83 pounds. Zane Fleck had a pretty 6.08 pound largemouth for big fish and it broke the cumulative pot for the third time this year.
I went over on Friday and spent a couple of hours riding around to get orientated on the lake and check some spots where I had caught fish there in years past. I also looked at some places I had put on maps in Alabama Outdoor News articles. Those old articles, with GPS coordinates, really help.

Although I made only a few casts Friday one of them provided a key for the tournament. In my last club tournament there about five years ago I had caught some good fish by casting worms and spinner baits under overhanging trees along the bank. The only fish I hooded Friday hit a spinner bait on that pattern in the late afternoon.

Saturday morning I ran to a bridge and started fishing it with a topwater plug at 6:00 AM. I quickly caught a keeper spotted bass then lost another keeper that jumped and threw my plug. At that time I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to hook a keeper so I was not too upset at losing one.

After working some gravel banks and points I went to docks at about 10:00 AM and fished a small jig and pig around them. Although I caught two keepers in the next two hours, I had fished a lot of docks without a bite.
After noon I decided to try the overhanging brush pattern and ran to the back of Spring Creek where trees overhang the water. Although the water along the edge is usually only a couple of feet deep, and you can’t hit five feet of water with a 30/06, it sometimes works. Even though the water was almost 90 degrees.
I caught two keepers in the next hour then a bad thunder storm made me head for the van, parked at the Spring Creek ramp. I sat in it for over an hour. I hated to miss fishing but will not go out when lightening is flashing. I did not get a bite after the storm.

At weigh-in I was first in line. After my fish were weighed I headed to the van and campground since another storm was coming and just got parked on my campsite before it hit. I had no idea I was in second place with my little limit.

Sunday morning I decided to try Cowan Creek since I had not found any concentration of fish in Spring Creek. As soon as I stopped I got a nice three pound largemouth on a spinner bait from a grass bed but after an hour did not get any more bites around grass. At 7:30 I cast under an overhanging tree and caught a small keeper on a spinner bait. That made me fish that pattern and I got four more keepers on spinner baits and worms under overhanging trees in Cowan Creek before the 3:00 weigh-in.

I didn’t think I had a very good catch and was surprised to win. It helped I was the only one with a limit both days.

Is Ethanol Gas Damaging Outboard Motors?

Yes – Ethanol Gas Is Damaging Outboard Motors
from The Fishing Wire

Having been fortunate enough to enjoy amazing spring-like weather from the deck of a boat on Tennessee’s Douglas Lake, it was tough to get back to work after the first real weekend with cooperative weather in some time. Having spent a large portion of the weekend enjoying family and recreation reminded me why I love the outdoors in the first place.

Even under those pleasant conditions, it’s tough to stop being a reporter -or at least listening to conversations that wouldn’t interest most other boaters. There were a couple of items that I think bear more investigation and conversation from anyone who uses a boat in pursuit of their interests – personal or commercial.

First, what’s the real deal with the ethanol controversy? Today’s news section carries a release from the Boat Owners Association of the United States (BoatUS) taking exception with the Missouri Corn Growers. Seems the growers put out a call for a concerted push by consumers to get more ethanol mixed into gasoline as a quick-fix for high prices.

BoatUS puts forth the now-familiar warning that more ethanol is virtually certain to damage small engines like those on outboard boats, as well as lawn mowers, motorcycles, generators, gas-powered blowers and any one of the myriad of gasoline-engined devices we all use on an almost-daily basis.

They cite the fact – not the assertion- that since the inclusion of ten percent ethanol in gasoline there have been increased problems with those engines. Their argument is focused on boats, but I have spoken with enough small engine manufacturers and repair shops to know that the ethanol is definitely the one change blamed for many of the fuel, fuel line and fuel system problems that have turned formerly-reliable pieces of equipment into recyclables.

At this point, the EPA has specifically prohibited the use of the newly-proposed E15 in marine engines, but not the multitude of other small engines. That raises the very real concern that distributors may accidentally dispense E15 to docks and marinas. Fuel mistakes have caused documented aircraft fatalities, and I realize that’s an extreme example that’s perilously close to fear-mongering. But I’d also argue that having an engine conk out in the midst of a rapidly-deteriorating weather situation is a life-threatening situation in the marine environment. The Coast Guard might also back me up on that argument, too.

But the hazards of this new fuel isn’t just the worst-case scenario. Our society seems fixated on “actionable” situations, those times when something breaks and your lawyer says there’s someone to “look to” for responsibility. If the quick mart where you normally buy gas for your mower switches to E15 and doesn’t clearly label the change, you could find your power tools, motorcycle, ATV or boat paying the price. At that point, it’s normal for people to “lawyer up” and go looking for someone to make them whole again.

I don’t think that’s the intent of E15, but it’s hard to judge motivations in a legislative and regulatory world where it seems the thicker wallet has the best odds of getting changes made in their favor.

So I’m encouraging everyone to do a lot of investigating before even considering saving those pennies per gallon on gasoline.

And if there’s a definitive answer to the question, I’d invite you to share it with me. In turn, I’ll share it with our readers. After all, none of us is as smart as all of us.

Is It Water Sports Season Yet?

Water Sport Season Upon Us
Jim Shepherd
from The Fishing Wire

Having spent most of the past three days on a boat enjoying terrific weather, it’s obvious that it’s boating season across most of the country. Hurricanes notwithstanding, it seems the boating industry is finally catching a break after virtually falling off a cliff in 2006 and ’07. But the numbers I’ve seen from the industry say 2013’s numbers were up 10.7 percent over 2012, and the manufacturers are telling me they’re seeing strong upticks in the blue collar boating segment, i.e., those in the 25-45 year old range who have kids.

Boats are back on the water (above) and last year’s great fishing gear- like the Fish Hunter (RIGHT)-a smart phone based individual fish finder mounted on last year’s improved Ugly Stik Gx2 combo are being put to good use.

Fish Hunter

Fish Hunter

They’re the group that disappeared in 2006 and contributed to a drop the industry said was 60-70% in the non-elite boat category. High-end sales had slowed, but those don’t really reflect the economic realities as the wealthy sportsmen are those who really do have disposable income and aren’t hampered when credit gets tight.

Good news for the fishing industry as well – and a reflection of the fact that that segment is recovering is the number of new products we will see rolling out next week when ICAST kicks off in Orlando, Florida.

Primarily known as “the tackle show” ICAST is a great reflection of both the U.S. and global health of the fishing industry. And as the releases that start appearing in today’s wire and will be large segments of the industry news all next week reflect, new efforts are centered on growing fishing as a viable recreational activity.

Key, of course to any sport’s growth is the youth market. With high school and collegiate tournament fishing kicking up across the country, it’s safe to say the teens of today will be in-touch with their inner angler. But the key to the industry’s ongoing health is recruitment of young anglers and the affordability of gear to the core angling fans.

To reach the young, it’s going to take more than simply downscaling size, price and quality of gear and putting a kid’s toy logo on it. That’s a realization that it seems Rebel Lures is taking seriously. In today’s news, you’ll see news that Rebel’s introducing a new line of kids lures that are far more than the scaled-down baits of adults. Their new lines feature barbless hooks and soft bodies that make them look like small lures, not reject adult baits.

There will be the usual amazing array of pieces of “smart gear” to help all anglers catch more fish. I’m hoping the new crop of gear contains something as awesome as the single piece of high-tech gear I’d consider the “sleeper” from last ICAST. That’s the Fish Hunter (www.fishhunter.com) , a high-tech, sonar-based piece of gear that gives an individual angler the high-tech advantage of a boat-based sonar rig. I’ve been using it on Tennessee’s Douglas Lake the past two weeks and have simply been amazed at the effectiveness of a piece of gear that looks like an oversized float on the line above my lure.

And it wasn’t just me. Douglas Lake anglers have been fascinated with the idea of having a “man-portable” sonar unit. One borrowed the unit from me for one of the area’s one-day fishing events. He returned the unit with word that the ability to use it as a secondary scouting unit was one reason he brought home a check from the competition.

And I’m hearing affordability is another issue being addressed this year. I was set to see a first-hand example of affordable gear with high-performance characteristics two weeks ago in Wisconsin while fishing with some industry friends.

Sturgeon Bay Smallmouth Grow Big

Sturgeon Bay Smallmouth Grow Big

The name on the hat says “Ugly” but the 6-pound, 3-ounce Sturgeon Bay catch being held by guide Jeff Weatherwax (right) says the results with the new “secret” gear was anything but ugly. And Pure Fishing’s Hunter Cole (left) got in on
Sturgeon Bay Smallmouth

Sturgeon Bay Smallmouth

the action with some nice hookups of his own. Jeff Samsel photos, with permission.

Unfortunately, the weather and American Airlines joined forces to change a simple two-hop trip into 36 hours of essentially wasted time. Instead of fishing on Sturgeon Bay, I found myself spending a miserable night on a cot along with thousands of other disgusted travelers in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

After two cancellations and a 24 hour delay, I admitted defeat and headed home. And know precisely why many air travelers with say we’re no longer passengers, we’re third-class cargo. Air carriers are making record profits whie operating with all the care and cordiality of bulk freight haulers. Who cares if travelers are inconvenienced, right?

Anyway, my fortunate friends spent some quality time fishing with the smart guys of Pure Fishing. One of the writers, Jeff Samsel, being an all-world nice guy and very knowledgeable angling authority, shared his impressions of Shakespeare’s newest rod and reel. Although I won’t give away the specifics, Jeff really liked the newest model.

Samsel says the new rod/reel combos were very tough- but offered a very good touch and feel when casting everything from 1/8 ounce hair jigs to rigs with one-ounce swimbait jig heads. That’s a wide variety of weights and shows the versatility I’d expect from a rod designed to be used by anglers of almost all skill levels – in fresh and saltwater situations.

Jeff says the hooksets were simple and the landing abilities were really solid.

Both Fishing Wire Editor Frank Sargeant and I will be in Orlando next week for ICAST – and I’m looking forward to seeing the newest innovations in everything from artificial baits to computer-based navigation and fish-finding tools.

And I’m hoping that if you’re one of our readers and happen to see me there you’ll take time to introduce yourself and let me know what you’d like to see covered in the wires. After all, we’re here to keep a simple promise: too keep you posted.