Where Was Pro Bass Fishing?
Seeing Red: One
View From ICAST
Jay Kumar
ICAST is the big annual recreational fishing (mostly tackle) industry trade show held every July in Las Vegas. It's hosted by the American Sportfishing Association (ASA), the tackle-industry trade association which also does a lot of important lobbying on anglers' behalf in Washington, D.C.
This year I and two other BassFan staffers attended the ICAST show, to see what's new and to get a feel for how the manufacturers are viewing the fishing market. Re: the latter, this year the mood of the show seemed to be generally upbeat. Judging by anecdotal comments from some of the major manufacturers, tackle orders taken at the show seemed to be good, and manufacturers seemed generally happy about retail sales.
Re: what's new, as usual the answer is not much – or at least not much that you could readily put a finger on. What I mean by that is when Yamamoto came out with the Senko a few years back, I don't think anyone could have predicted what an amazing and influential bait it would be. So who knows what flew under our radar this year.
The innovators were still doing their thing:
> Shimano has improved the Chronarch with a new look and new features (too many to list here), and Shimano-owned G. Loomis' new titanium "Recoil" rod guides can be bent and will snap right back to shape (and don't need ceramic inserts, and supposedly aren't affected by braided line).
> Triple Fish has a new, no-memory copolymer line that – on the spool, at least – looks promising. Unroll it off the spool and it just hangs there. (Tip: When someone tells you a line is super-strong, don't try to be a he-man, wind it around your fingers and then jerk to try and break it, like I did. If you can't help yourself, bring along some Band-Aids.) Also, Triple Fish's Fluorocarbon line is now out in 6-pound-test for dropshotting.
> Japanese manufacturers – Lucky Craft, Jackall and Strike Pro – continue to put out some of the most unbelievable-looking and -acting hardbaits. Jackall in particular has a cool-looking new crankbait whose back half knocks (not rattles) as it swings from side to side.
> Kanji might have had the best-looking baits at the show. You should see the finishes and action of its new frog. But the highlight was an interesting new tungsten worm weight that is faceted lengthwise. According to Kota Kiriyama, the facets (and slick, color-bonded finish) enable the weight to more-easily slide through matted weeds. Can't wait to try it.
Also:
> Shakespeare/Pflueger (which recently bought All Star rods and distributes that red Cajun line) has gotten more aggressive, and is doing some cool stuff with lines and other products.
> Zebco/Quantum has continued to solidly upgrade its reels, which is good.
Red
Those are some tidbits, which with one exception is really all I picked up on at the show. The exception is the color red. I might be wrong here, but I think that the tackle industry is just scratching the surface when it comes to red. Here's what I mean.
Shakespeare is counting on fish not being able to see its red Cajun line.
Last year Strike King made a big deal about putting new red, or "bleeding bait," hooks on its baits. The logic seemed pretty simple to me: red looks like blood, and predators key in on blood. But the problem with that is that red is one of the first colors to disappear in the water column to our eyes, at least – which is why Shakespeare's red Cajun line is supposed to have low visibility underwater ("disappears in as little as 3 feet of water" – see the movie by clicking here).
Another problem is that bass see red and green best. If crawfish have red speckles in the spring, and red crankbaits and black/red flake tubes work so well in the spring, are we to assume that bass can't see the red? And what about red shad? That's one of the best worm colors ever.
Southern California big-bass expert Bill Siemantel was at the ICAST show, and has experimented with red hooks. He's found that on baits with treble hooks, you can move one set of red trebles around on the bait and bass will almost invariably hit the set that's red. He believes the fish can't see the red hooks, and that's why they work – in that spot, the fish just see the bait itself or the suggestion of something (a fin maybe?) from the red hooks.
On the other hand, TruTurn hooks states that "during extensive underwater testing, we found that every species in the test tank would strike dark red more than any other color combined." It theorizes that "this dark red color simulates the gill flash of feeding fish" and "this is what stimulates the natural feeding response" of bass.
Strike King believes so strongly in red that they're expanding it across their line of baits.
Strike King marketing whiz Chris Brown says that in the case of his company's baits, the red hooks flash, which attract the fish or cause more reaction strikes. He also says that in his on-the-water experiences, baits with red hooks generally outperform baits with normal-colored hooks. (In that light, maybe red hooks might be something co-anglers should look into.)
More manufacturers are using red hooks now, but most seem to use them because market leaders like Strike King are doing it or because it gives their baits a new look (s a new marketing angle). In other words, I don't think the industry as a whole has really drilled down far enough into what the color red might have to offer anglers. It might be nothing, or not much, but just by the anecdotal evidence it looks like there's more there.
Seeing A Different Kind of Red
An oft-quoted stat that no one seems to be able to find the source of, including me, is that 80-plus cents of every tackle dollar is spent on bass fishing. If that's not true, I'd bet that the number is high anyway, just based on the percentage of bass-specific anglers in the U.S. (about 60 percent of the total). From there, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that most of that money is spent by "enthusiasts," meaning tournament anglers or at least fans of the professional bass fishing scene.
Why, then, were photos of professional bass anglers – or, for that matter, photos of pro walleye and saltwater anglers – few and far between at the ICAST show? Granted the show wasn't open to the general public, but don't manufacturers want wholesale and retail buyers to know that they're marketing to the public via the most visible route in fishing? Don't they want the buyers to know that if they place orders, the manufacturers will do their best to make sure consumers know about those products via the exploits of professional anglers? Call me stupid, but if I was a manufacturer I'd sure want them to know.
Maybe I'm wrong here too, but it also struck me that a lot of the tackle business, at least at that level, is being done the way it's been done for at least two decades. Many companies seem more interested in mergers and acquisitions, year-to-year sales comparisons and seeing their products promoted by the same old tired means than by reaching people in ways enthusiasts (the key) relate to now.
I wonder if that's doing more to hurt fishing license sales than industry people realize. But again, I could be wrong.
Regardless, the failure of some manufacturers to promote the professional anglers who promote – and in many cases, design – their products I believe is a huge mistake. That cross-pollination should go on at every level of the marketing-to-consumer chain if manufacturers are to make the most of their investments in professional fishing. And it will also help professional fishing when manufacturers see how much their investments there can be worth.
But doing that will take creativity, hard work and upsetting the same old apple cart, so who knows if it will happen. I wasn't encouraged by what I saw at ICAST, but following are some companies who made sure people knew that they were promoting their products through the most highly-visible promotional mechanism in fishing today: professional bass fishing.
Cocoons sunglasses was one manufacturer that did a good job of making sure everyone knew its products are endorsed by Gary Klein and other pro bass anglers.
The B team included:
The "shame on you" list, for having zero mention or pics of their pros (that I saw), included:
Also notable is that I didn't see a single photo of one of the hottest pros this year: the Hack Attack, who every manufacturer should be trying to snap up.
Of course, it would also help if pros made the trip out to Vegas to work at least one of the 3 days of the show. This year few did, maybe because they weren't asked, though I'm not sure if that's a good excuse. Along with the above-mentioned pros, also in attendance that we saw were Terry Segraves and David Fritts (Fritts presumably was there for the Normark/Rapala family of baits).
As a final note, sponsoring pro anglers isn't the be-all, end-all. An embroidered logo on a tour jersey isn't worth much – even if an angler win a major event – without the accompanying marketing, promotional (angler and products) and other pieces of the puzzle needed to sell products to enthusiasts like BassFans. And last but not least, the product has to be good. All the hype in the world won't sell a brick with hooks.
Notable
> All manufacturers don't attend the ICAST show. Major bass-market players like Terminator and Gambler weren't there this year.
Jay Kumar is BassFan's CEO.
