Had a nice morning of casting and even a few tugs on the end of the line today. And wouldn’t you know it, the Jackall wacky jig (and cola-colored Flick Shake) was just as effective as it had been earlier in the spring. (And see that 5.8-inch bait down in the maw of this dandy.)

Still, as I looked at the rig (a worm draped on a weedless jig head) I thought back to the days when we were all paranoid about the fish seeing the hook, the sinker or an unpainted jig head.

Jim Emmett, a friend and partner since my club days in the 70′s, likewise, said as much. As a mold maker in his working days, he produced some interesting creations over the years, but almost always with the thought of small hooks and light sinkers–as he reminded me, “As light as I can get away with.” (more…)

TroKar, the new super hook just introduced yesterday at ICAST is, in fact, one very sharp piece of steel. When my sample arrived (just in time so I wouldn’t show any images until the day the trade show opened) I went to pull one out of the foam holder, and barely escaped without needing stitches.

I have yet to fish them, but I’m pretty sure there was enough field work preceding their release that we can safely say, “They stick ‘em.” And while I have no equipment to measure the amount of flex in the wire, they do not appear to be dramatically different in comparison to other premium hooks of the same approximate wire diameter.

Yet looking closely at the samples, reading the press information and factoring in the suggested retail price, the biggest decision that angler/consumers are going to have to figure out is “are they worth it?” (more…)

Bass fishermen are kind of funny. They’re so much like that guy sitting in the back row, wise-cracking after every critical point in a presentation. Or if not that, ungraciously accepting the results of uncommon problem solving, as if those solutions grew on vines.

Robo’s Greg Stump knows something of the feeling. Speaking of his sophisticated EZ Shad he said, “We finally perfected the technology to make these things three colors, to inject three colors consistently–that took a long time.” (more…)

I’ve kicked around a lot of ideas about what works and what doesn’t in catching bass. And I would probably have some real firm answers—if it wasn’t for those fish that break just enough of the rules to keep me guessing.

Line visibility (plus all the other issues related to bass vision) makes me wonder a lot. I’ve seen untold number of situations where say, 15-pound green mono beats the heck out of 8-pound clear, and also those days where a 6-pound tinted mono got bit just as well as 6- or 8-pound fluorocarbon.

Furthermore, we’ve all heard the arguments related to the color red (as in hooks, line and bleeding bait imitations). Proponents of the color’s visibility or invisibility are so diametrically opposed; it makes you wonder what the heck they are looking at in those laboratories. (more…)

“I couldn’t tell you that five years ago,” said Bassmasters Classic champion Skeet Reese, when I interviewed him a couple of days ago.

What he couldn’t tell me about then was how much different a sophisticated, technical approach would have changed his tournament fishing and his success. “I always thought fishing was not rocket science,” he confessed. “But the older I’ve gotten, the more I analyze and the more I realize how scientific it is.”

In particular, I was trying to find out the role of sunglasses, especially since seeing cover (not seeing fish) was a matter that came up in his post-Classic interviews. His Wiley X’s (click here) helped him then, but what role did they play for the rest of the Elite tour? (more…)