ICAST 2010 fishing tackle show manufacturer coverage


	Accurate DFS Slammer rods for serious jigging As we wind up our ICAST coverage we come to Accurate, a company that is well respected among big game anglers that are looking for a premium reel with a quality drag system. Earlier this season Accurate revamped their lineup of Boss reels and at the show they introduced a series of new rods designed to pair with their smaller round reels.
	The Lure that Bleeds - Strike Pro's Trailer Strike Pro introduces a number of new lures, most interesting of which is the new "Trailer" which features a bleeding action. In addition to new lures the company also introduces new lines under their Strike Wire series.
	Russelure, over 60 years and still going strong Russelure has stood the test of time and this season the company celebrates 63 years in business with their proven lure. With its unusual wobble swimming action the Russelure can be varied from an eccentric fast motion to a slower, smooth, natural movement and be used for a whole lot more than just trout and bass.
	The Tuscaroran Rude Frog rights itself Tuscaroran lures has built up a following among pro anglers and most famous of which is the Rude Frog. This year the company introduces a few other new plastics that are designed to be fished a variety of ways.
	New Swimbait Concepts from Castaic and Reaction Strike Reaction Strike is known for their swimbaits and recently they brought well known brand Castaic Baits into their fold. This ICAST they displayed a number of prototypes as well as two new swimbaits nearing production and they are certainly not “me too” offerings.
	Load Up! Scent Blazer Lures and Teasers Targeting big game? Australian company Scent Blazer has designed a series of new baits ranging from trolling lures to teasers that all feature a bait chamber for added attraction. These lures feature a water intake system for an improved dispersion trail behind the lure.
	Rapala Unveils 1,700 New Skus for 2011 A couple of weeks prior to ICAST, we shared with you some of the new and exciting baits Rapala will be bringing to market in 2011. At the show, we got to see all these baits and more in all of their available colors. But what we didn’t get to show you in the preview were some of the tools and accessories this company has in store for us in 2011.
	Chomping at the bit to get some Big Bite Baits Used by some of the biggest pros on tour including Dean Rojas and Jeff Kriet, Big Bite Baits are designed to get the biggest fish to bite. While the company is best known for their wide array of plastics for bass fishing they also have tiny plastics and jigs for crappie.
	Innovating landing nets at ICAST - The Ego S2 Slider and the Leverage Landing Net Apparently nets are still a category where manufacturers can still add some real innovation. This ICAST two net manufacturers introduced landing nets that were designed to be faster and easier to deploy, introducing the Ego S2 Slider and Leverage Landing Net.
	Fin-tech Introduces an Interchangeable Bottom Bouncer This year, Fin-tech introduced a new bottom bouncing weight system sure to excite anglers in the North East. It’s called the Tech Bouncer and it’s essentially a bottom bouncing weight rig but with a twist - the weight is interchangeable.
	Humminbird Refines Their Products At ICAST, rather than introduce something equally as exciting, instead, the company concentrated on enhancing the visibility of existing models - literally.
	Wicked Wacky Gamakatsu Style Gamakatsu introduced two new hooks at ICAST and both the Wicked Wacky and Heavy Cover Worm feature innovations designed to make it easier for anglers to target fish with in very specific applications.
	William Joseph's New Offerings to Keep You and Your Gear Dry and Safe William Joseph products are well known in the fly fishing world but they also have products that are designed for other anglers. This ICAST they had a huge amount of new products to introduce that addressed a very wide range of applications.
	Lakewood Products Changes Materials and Ups Their Quality Lakewood Products made a heavy investment in machinery to update their factory and are now building their bait cases with high quality plastic inserts instead of wood. The result is a more structurally sound box better able to withstand abuse in shipping and travel...
	WaveSpin Goes Disney? The big news for them this year of course, was the Doug Hannon designed and patented MicroWave guide for spinning rods. News that we’ve already shared with you in our coverage of Castaway Rods, who holds the exclusive license for this product.
	Take Your Key and Lock It with DuraSafe Boat security is something many of us take for granted. Unfortunately, with the current economic climate, thefts are becoming more and more common. Whether we’re talking entire rigs, boat parts, or fishing gear, DuraSafe is doing their best to make the task of securing your boat and gear as easy as possible.
	Style from North of the Border: Rapala Canada Rapala not only had new stuff to show us for the US market, but Rapala Canada was on hand to show us what’s in store for the Canadian market! What they debuted at ICAST this year not only involved rounding out and extending their existing lineup or rods, but it included a series of reels to match!
	Improved Promar Hook Resistant Net and New Ahi Glow in the Dark Squid Heads AhiUSA/Promar is known most of all for their quality nets and this year they redesigned a number of nets after our review as well as released new Glow in the dark Sabo Squid Heads for targeting a complete range of saltwater fish.
	Hold Your Spot in Shallow Water with Minn Kota's New Talon Ever wonder why someone couldn’t come out with a solution powered by your boat’s onboard batteries? You know, a plug and play deal that you can easily install and remove yourself rather than having to take your entire rig into a dealership and wait until they have time to get to it?
	Nothing to be Nervous about : Owner America Last year, this terminal tackle company ventured into the soft bait market with the introduction of a series of finesse worms, a creature bait, and a soft bodied swimbait. This year, Owner extends this lineup with the introduction of three new baits and follows up with a couple of terminal tackle introductions as well.
	Spro Brings Out Their Pros and their New Baits The pros were out in force this year at the Spro booth and why not? They each had news of new products to share with us. We caught up with John Crews, Mike Mc Clelland, and Bill Siemantel.
	Pepper Jig's Future Is So Bright, They're Already Wearing Shades Pepper Jigs has the distinction of taking the #2 spot in our recent SpinnerBait shootout together with tying for first place in our 2009 Jig Roundup. We’re always impressed with the quality their product so we were more than happy to finally meet the man behind the spice, Eugene Covello.
	Some Premium Fishing Lines from ICAST 2010 Each and every year, fishing line is a big part of ICAST introductions and while many larger manufacturers continue to introduce their own interpretations, there remain a couple of companies who specialize in lines.
	Presentando Molix - With Mike Iaconelli In February of this past year, we introduced you to Molix, an Italian lure manufacturer based right in Molinella, Italy - just outside of Bologna, and about 2 hours away from Venice. We missed them at ICAST 2009, but were sure to stop by their booth this year and when we did, we were greeted by a very enthusiastic Mike Iaconelli.
	Phenix Continues to Refine Their Offering Phenix Rods out of Southern California continues to redefine their product offering. Earlier this year at the Sacramento, California International Sportsman’s Exposition, Phenix introduced us to their new Classix MBX series of rods featuring exotic burlwood accent pieces carefully integrated into the rod’s handle.
	Optimum Continues to Shake Things Up With the Help of ima We stopped by the Optimum booth to see what’s new, Matt Paino manages a group of companies that includes Optimum, ima, Vagabond, and Reins to name a few, and much of what they have new and exciting can best be shared simply with photographs.
	Dobyns Rods Extends Their Proven Lineup 2009 WON BASS US Open Champ, Gary Dobyns, greeted us at his booth at this year’s ICAST with nothing new in terms of product line, but rather, extensions of his popular Champion and Champion Extreme series of rods. We were surprised to see this was one of the few rod manufacturers not jumping on the micro bandwagon.
	Falcon's New Ultra Budget Series, HD Falcon Rods has been around since 1990 providing anglers with solid product, sensibly priced, and built within the United States. Last year, they introduced the contemporary styled BuCoo rods, a series of rods featuring split rear grips of Eva, no foregrip, and all Fuji components for $99.
	Kistler Custom Rods Extends the ZBone Brand Kistler Custom Rods announced at ICAST 2010 that they will now be offering three separate lines of pre-built, stock, ZBone rods. All three series will be built on their custom blend North Fork Composite HM blank with the actual difference in series coming down to specific components.
	Gene Larew's Do-It-All Salt Flick'R and Other Exciting Products Gene Larew is well known for its unique plastic designs and this year at ICAST they added a few new lures to their line card. The ones that stood out the most to use were the new Salt Flick'R worm that utilize an innovative swiveling jighead.
	The Live Jig Lives, Introducing the New Luna Bait Luna Jig Some of you may already know about the Luna Jig but we didn't until we ran into former Megabait owner at ICAST. He mentioned to us that he now has a new company called Luna Bait where and has created a new mold that is designed to improve on the original in both fit and finish of the lure.
	New Jersey's PowerTeam Lures Fueled by Diesel Fresh out of Jackson, New Jersey is a new soft bait company offering an assortment of baits made of a neutral buoyancy plastic infused with a special blend of crawdad scents and salt formulated to not only entice the fish into biting, but to make them hold the baits longer giving you more time to set and land them.
	Lamiglas Addresses the Needs of Northern California Steelhead Anglers Lamiglas has been around for nearly fifty years and has seen countless fads and trends come and go, so naturally their response to the next “hot” thing is typically one of careful, calculated, and measured terms.
	Damiki's new baits highlighted by Bryan Thrift, FLW Angler of the Year Last year, their booth was minimally sized with just a few new baits to display. In 2010, riding on the success of pro staffer Bryan Thrift and his 2010 FLW Angler of the Year title, Damiki returned to ICAST with a very large booth but a somewhat subdued number of new offerings.
	Rescue tape, just stretch, wrap and get rescued! So just what is Rescue Tape and what is it doing at a fishing tackle show? This tape is a self fusing silicone repair tape that is designed to repair watercraft leaks and electrical wiring but also can be used as a shrink wrap, handle grip and so much more.
	TightLines Infusing Their Baits with Blood ... UV Blood This year Tightlines carries the technology a step further debuting a new, intricate, two color scheme into their baits rather than just enhancing the color that is already there. This year TightLines introduces us to UV Blood.
	Trokar Makes a Case for Their Hooks Trokar has been busy rounding out their lineup with new hook sizes and their big news at ICAST this year is the availability of their Elite Pro Assortment. To help prostaff and sale representatives sell the product, Trokar packaged their array of product in a fly-fishing like case, only bass sized.
	Laser Lures Turns Their Quality Up a Notch With New Baits and Finishes Momentum has been building with this company and this year, at ICAST 2010, they upped the ante with some skirted baits, new look hardbaits featuring premium finishes, and a signature crank by Boyd Duckett.
	Black Dog Bait Company Going Soft (Plastics) One of the booths we look forward to visiting each and every year is by a company right in our own backyard. Black Dog Bait Company made their name with the Lunker Punker and Shellcracker big baits, but in recent years have been downsizing their offerings first with the injection molded Punker and then miniature SmallCracker.
	St Croix Rods with 3M Matrix Nano Resin and Other New Offerings St Croix Rods has offerings for a wide range of species and are among the most high tech rod companies out there, with a full blown in-house R&D lab that applies many technologies and techniques that other manufacturers simply cannot replicate. This year they are incorporating a 3M Matrix Nano Resin into some of their more high performing rods.
	Introducing Denali Custom Rods Lineup of Exotic Hardwood Rods New to us this year is a rod manufacturer out of Mountain Home, Arkansas. Denali Rods approach is to offer old school craftsmanship together with contemporary stylings and value. Each of their rod series can be identified by their somewhat unique use of Asian hardwoods at the foregrip for each rod.
	A New, 'WILD' Crop of Carrots from e21 Earlier this year, we broke the story revealing the immediate availability of their very own series of micro guided rods. e21 has now dove head long into the micro guide craze not only with a refinement of their original Micro lineup, but with two entirely new lines of micro-guided rods!
	Boomerang Tool company introduces new tools, and they still come back to you We first learned about the Boomerang pliers at ICAST 2009 in Orlando. Fast forward a year later and the company has refined their offerings and introduced higher end models and had some new prototypes of soon to come new tools.
	Instant rod-tip repair in the field with the "Grip Tip" Have you ever gone to the lake and find a rod tip broken or an insert from the guide popped out? That can definitely ruin a good day of fishing, especially if you only have a few rods with you. The Grip Tip by Vanco can cure that problem fast, easy and effective without the help of tools or glue.
	Okuma unleashes a four new low profile baitcasters, and yes... there are lefties Okuma had a great showing this ICAST with a complete assortment of new reels and rods addressing both freshwater and saltwater categories. In addition to the "buff" Makaira we covered yesterday the company has introduced four brand new low profile baitcasters for bass anglers.
	OpenWater Ranger Backpack gives anglers on the go plenty of room OpenWater made quite a splash this year with the introduction of their new Ranger Backpack which won the Best Tackle Management category in the New product Showcase. Chock full of angler specific features the Ranger is designed for those anglers that require plenty of tackle storage on the go.
	Simple yet Effective, Disabled Boat flags help get you home We all think we are going to start the big motor on the first turn of the key every time. However, in reality no matter how much we maintain our boat, are careful with it and how great our motor manufacturer is stuff happens on the water!
	Jackall unveils new hard and soft lures with "I-Motion" Technology Jackall has had a busy year and continues to introduce new baits, both hard and soft, that exhibit both interesting features and quality finishes. We caught up with the team at Jackall including Pro BASS Angler Jared Lintner to check out the latest from the Japanese manufacturer.
	Daiwa’s Freshwater Reel Offerings and a new Logo While Daiwa’s saltwater reel introductions were chock full of exciting products the freshwater side of things was somewhat limited. Sorry guys, no Pixy this year.
	Okuma's new Flagship Saltwater reel, the very "Buff" Makaira Meet the Makaira, the new flagship of the Okuma product line, Makaira. The platform of the Makaira series was designed around what Okuma calls its 4D concept, which incorporates the Design, Drive, Drag and Durability of the overall reel.
	A Pictorial Behind the Scenes Look at ICAST with the TT Boys So just what is ICAST like? One word, madness. Over the course of three days we probably get a total of six to eight hours of sleep and its probably close to that for a lot of the Manufacturers and Pros, add a little Vegas into the equation and again.... madness.
	Dr. Spinnerbait introduces new Ko-Man-Chi blades and they are flexible Spinnerbaits are back and a number of manufacturers are adding innovation to these proven fish catching blades. Ko-Man-CHi had one of the most interesting designs with a hybrid hard bend and flexible wire design. We sat down with Dr. Spinnerbait to learn more...
	Castaway Introduces “Microwave” Guide Equipped rods Castaway introduces a hybrid micro-guide rod which makes use of microguides in front of the “Microwave” guide which was designed by Doug Hannon aka “The Bass Professor” and exclusively licensed to CastAway Rods.
	Van Staal's New Tough Yet Affordable VM150 Spinning Reel Introducing the new VM150, it's a spinning reel that is almost as tough but many more times less expensive than the original Van Staal models and now every angler can afford to have one.
	Larry Dahlberg digs some lures out of his secret stash and teams up with River2sea Baits This year at ICAST the team at River2Sea really had something exciting to show us. They teamed up with Larry Dahlberg, the man, the myth, the legend... Together they introduced four new baits that are designed to be ultra realistic and absolutely deadly on the water.
	Just exactly what is the Shimano "Waxwing" System? To say Shimano dominated the new product showcase would be an understatement. Every product associated with the new Waxwing System won their category and that includes rod, reel and lure. So just what is this Waxwing system?
	Going Smaller and Lighter yet again, Shimano’s new freshwater reel offerings Shimano has listened to their customers and the message for lighter more refined reels was hear loud and clear. This ICAST Shimano introduces new reels that once again tip the scales in the lighter direction. In addition to more compact baitcasters Shimano also introduced a new baitcaster called Caenan...
	Quantum's New Reels Are So Hot They Are Smokin' The talk on the ICAST floor among many press and buyers centered around Quantum's low profile casting reel. When we finally made it to the booth we were greeted by the team at Quantum including KVD, who gave us a look at just what everyone was so excited about.
	G.Loomis Debuts NRX and it is the Real Deal! Let's face it while G.Loomis makes a great rod there hasn't been a whole lot of innovation or excitement from the camp in the last few years. Rather than redefine themselves Loomis seemed content to simply make evolutionary changes rather than revolutionary ones. Well that all changed today when the company officially introduced their new line of NRX rods.
	Skeet Reese introduces his own line of reels under W&M Skeet Reese's line of bass rods manufactured by Wright and McGill are arguably the best selling series of rods in recent memory. So when word spread of Reese's departure from Abu Garcia to develop a new series of rods, it didn't take much to deduct his new reel allegiance.
	It's Time For True Enthusiast Gear, Evergreen International Comes to North America In Style First it was Damiki, last year it was Colmic (where are they now?), but finally, at ICAST 2010, the real enthusiast level tackle has hit North America. Evergreen International debuted at this year’s show with an official booth to announce the availability of their product domestically, on US soil.
	Daiwa’s unveils new saltwater reels at ICAST, including an addition to the Saltiga lineup This season Daiwa introduced three new freshwater reels, one of which was the already released Daiwa Zillion HyperSpeed. While we will get into the other freshwater reels shortly the company did make a major push into saltwater once again with new Saltiga and Saltist reels.
	New and Exciting Abu Garcia Reels Using NanoShield Technology and an Iaconelli Morrum Visiting the Pure Fishing football field-size booth is always a pleasure as there are always plenty of new products to drool over. At the Abu Garcia Reel section there is plenty that is new and exciting for the coming fishing season. Let's see what they will be offering at the end of the year and early next.
	Daiwa goes high end with new Steez "SPX Mega Top" and "Saltiga G" Rods Daiwa adds new high end rod offerings to their lineup this ICAST with new Steez rods designed for ultra finesse applications and on the other end of the spectrum the company launches Saltiga G boat rods featuring a blend of fiberglass and graphite.