Tomorrow night is the start of ICAST. Without going into every detail I’ll tell you it’s the biggest fishing show there is. Nearly every manufacturer in the industry will be there with new or improved products.
I’ve been going for years and years but I’m still amazed at what I see there. Some of the stuff is really creative and original. It’ll help us all catch more fish. Some of it is beyond belief when it comes to how and why it was ever created in the first place. It’s a kind of tribute to the creativity of the human mind, and to our desperation to outsmart fish.
Fortunately, my sponsors are all in the former category. Our stuff is cool. I’ll be there with them helping show buyers and the media — this is not a consumer show — why they should buy our products for resale. That’s important because if the buyers for the tackle shops don’t order the products you’ll never see them. At the same time if they don’t know how to use them they can’t pass that information along. Again, you’ll never know about it.
Let me tell you a little about what we have that’s new and why you should be looking for them in your local tackle store.
VMC hooks will have a ton of new hooks available, all with some design input by me. I talked about them in detail a couple of weeks ago so I won’t go into that right now. I will say, however, that they’ll change the way you fish. I strongly suggest you consider upgrading to some of them. If you do, you’ll land more fish.
Of course, Rapala will also be officially introducing our new hardbait colors. Again, I’ve talked about them in detail in past columns. I’m as proud of this project as anything I’ve ever done off the water. If it’s softbaits you’re interested in you can always look at some of the new Havoc baits. They’re pretty awesome, too.
The last thing I’m going to mention is that Abu Garcia has revamped their Revo line. Now, that’s news! I mean, they’re darn fine reels as is. Imagine what they’ll be like after they’ve been improved. They’ll be scary good.
There’ll be extensive coverage on Bassmaster.com about all of this next week, as well as hundreds of other products from other manufacturers. Check in several times a day so you’ll always be up to speed on what’s happening. I’ll be wandering around the show doing the same thing.
Here’s why I’m telling you (and me) to stay informed about new fishing products: no one can know it all and no one can think of everything. We all need to look around and make sure we aren’t missing anything. Almost every company with any size to it has a professional pro staff helping them design new or improve existing products. You never know what you’ll see that you can use effectively to catch fish on your home waters.
