2009 Bassmaster
Classic Expo Coverage: Part 2 (continued)
Matt
Paino of Optimum Baits showed off various sizes of Baby Line Thru
swimbaits as well as the new Bone series of Deps Buzzjets. He said that
the bone versions make a different noise underwater than the standard plastic
ones.
Optimum’s Baby Line Thru
(BLT) swimbait has a bulbous head that provides its unique swimming action
Matt Paino claims that the
bone Buzzjet has a different pitch than its plastic counterpart
Even
spinnerbait manufacturers are getting in on the enthusiast market. Talon
Lures of Milam, Texas showed off not only their “Lake Fork-style” spoons,
but also their Shibui Spinnerbaits, an American-made lure with Japanese-market
sensibilities, including custom-painted heads and intricate skirt patterns.
The Shibui spinnerbait brings spinnerbaits to a
new level of detail
More
mainstream tackle companies are also expanding their lines with niche products.
For example, PRADCO’s Excalibur series of lures now includes a deeper
diving jerkbait and three sizes of “one-knock” rattling baits.
PRADCO’s lipless
one-knocker now comes in three sizes, all of which are available in this “Foxy
Shad” pattern
The Excalibur jerkbait is
available in a deep-diving version
On the
super-enthusiast front, Bacon’s Tackle of Shreveport offered genuine frog
skin topwaters for $55 each, a price that would have seemed ridiculous a decade
ago, but now doesn’t seem so extreme.
Bacon’s Tackle of
Shreveport offered up frog skin covered topwater plugs
Soft
Baits:
In soft plastics, there were certainly a few dropshot or shakey-head oriented
lures, but even in that category the big stuff prevailed. For example, Kelly
Jones of Kicker Fish Bait Co. couldn’t keep certain colors of his
seven-inch Holeshot worms in stock. Like its smaller four-inch brother, the
larger version keeps a tail up posture under all conditions.
Kelly Jones of Kicker Fish
believes that his Holeshot worm has a more buoyant tail section than any of his
competitors’ baits
Strike King
featured a ten-inch Anaconda worm, the same one Greg Hackney used to win the
East-West Fishoff at Falcon last fall. They also had their larger Rage Tail craw
(the “Lobster”) and flipping baits like the Rodent and Space Monkey available in
clamshell packages to prevent the baits from becoming deformed in the bags --
now even the packaging has advanced to suit the products.
Matt Paino shows off a
Texas-sized lizard, by way of California
Optimum Baits,
in addition to their soft swimbaits (as well as the TABU series of
dropshot minnows), showed off a monster lizard that seemed ideally suited for
big Texas or California bass. While not inexpensive, Matt Paino said that local
anglers were buying them at a rapid pace.
Lake Fork Tackle’s
plastics were created with heavy-duty water displacement in mind
Lake
Fork Tackle,
owned by FLW Tour pro Mark Pack, prominently displayed their Hyper Freak and
Hyper Worm soft plastics, lures dominated by oversized paddletails. Kelly Jordon
was reportedly using the company’s Magic Shad during the Classic competition
itself.
The Ardent culling system
is already quite popular
Line
and Accessories: Ardent,
a company which seemingly emerged out of nowhere into the reel market a few
years back, recently introduced a culling system which was in great demand on
the show floor. The floats attached to the cull clips feature rotating dials of
numbers. Once a fish is caught and weighed, its weight can be marked on the
float, thereby making subsequent culling easier.
Lake Fork Tackle claims
that their fluorocarbon-coated monofilament retains the best properties of both
types of line
In
addition to their line of soft plastics, Lake Fork Tackle showed off
their new series of fishing lines, including both a monofilament and a
fluorocarbon-coated mono made by a company in France. LFT discovered the line at
last year’s EFFTEX show, Europe’s answer to ICAST. Company CEO Ronnie Parker
demonstrated that not only was the line of a smaller diameter than the
competition’s, but furthermore that when manually kinked and crimped it would
later display no memory of such actions. The lines will be available at a
competitive price.
Tennessee’s Mike Whitten
shows off one of the new Falcon FTO tackle bags
Falcon Rods
displayed their newest tackle organization systems, including a new bag meant to
hold their specialized tackle trays.
Rods, Reels, and
more
