Between the postseason on Bays de Nocs and the Toyota Bonus Bucks Owner’s Tournament I spent several days with sponsors. I thought you might find it interesting to learn about what we do and how we do it. Some of it was along the lines of new product development and some of it was a combination of education and advertising. We’ll deal with new products first.
Other than actually catching bass, the part of my career I like the most is working on new products. It’s fun to think up ideas and see them put into action. And, I have to say that it’s fun to catch fish on something that’s actually yours.
It’s even more fun, though, to see someone else catch bass on something that you help develop. It’s a matter of pride. When you’re watching someone fish with your bait it’s like you have a part in what he or she is doing. Really, you do. That’s the great thing about it.
Some of the new stuff that’s coming out I’m not allowed to talk about but I can tell you that with Rapala there’ll be new lures and several new colors and finishes. The color thing is more important than many anglers realize.
Different colors look different under different water conditions. The contrast is different, too. At least that’s the way it works with us humans. So, you have to figure the same thing happens with the fish. The more colors you have — up to the point of reason — the more fish you’re going to catch.
We’ve also got some really cool new hooks coming from VMC. They’ll be technique specific. That’s the industry trend, and for good reason. Having a hook that’s specifically designed for exactly what you’re doing will result in a more secure hookset.
We also have a set of VMC educational commercials coming along that’ll help you pick the right hook for the technique you’re using. Having a dozen different hooks won’t help you one bit unless you know when to use each one. Our commercials are designed to help you with that.
Anyway, in the commercials there’ll be an angler looking through his bag for a hook. My head will jump up, out of his tackle bag and I’ll give him specific advice based on where he’s fishing, what he’s using and the size of the fish he expects to catch. They’re a combination of seminar and commercial. I like that, especially the education part.
Now that we’re on the subject of education I want to encourage everyone to think about some fishing stuff they want to know about — questions, ideas, theories, whatever. Post them in the comments section and I’ll try to talk about them in future columns.
My goal with this column is not to just tell you about my life and my fishing. It’s to help you catch more fish. I can do that a lot better if you tell me what it is that you want to know.
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebookand Twitteror visit his website, mikeiaconelli.com.
