W2F Blog

Friday, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a statement, rejecting the petition submitted by Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy to ban lead in outdoor sports, namely ammunition and fishing tackle. The rejection addresses jurisdictional issues over the agency's legal authority to issue such a ban under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.

In a new move for FLW Outdoors, a release went out today stating that two anglers had been disqualified after the fact for breaking the off-limits restrictions on practice time at the FLW Sereis event on Lake Champlain this past weekend. It was an inadvertent mistake by one of the top-10 pros, and he turned himself in after another angler quizzed him about his practice and realized he was on the water too early.

In part one of our three-part series with electronics guru Aaron Martens, we spoke to him about the importance of his electronics and what major features are the most important to him. In this piece, part two, he delves a little deeper into the settings and tweaks he makes to his electronics to dial in on sweet spots and how the new electronics have sped up the process of finding fish for the amicable pro. Many of the items mentioned below he has not shared before in a public forum.

Finding the best spots on your fishery

We're all anxiously awaiting more news about the pending BASS sale to Jerry McKinnis, Don Logan and Jim Copeland. McKinnis created a blog to communicate with all the BASS membership through this process, and he's already put up his first post just giving folks a feel for his personality and the excitement these three have for where they want to take bass fishing.

 
Some guys are known as great flippers and pitchers. Denny Brauer and Tommy Biffle come to mind there. Some are great power fishermen. Kevin VanDam and Skeet Reese are names at the top of that trade. Some are great boat drivers. Shaw Grigsby and Gary Klein are in that mix. Do you know who the electronics guru on the BASS Elites is? Aaron Martens is the top of that class. We call him the “e-Wizard” here at Wired2Fish.

Editors Note: We're going to try something new and recap each week in case you missed something.

We had too many wonderful telling photos from our Zoom WEC visit to put in our original article, so we wanted to add a few more for you guys so you can feel like you were there with us. Trust us, we were thinking of you guys and how many of our die-hard crankbaiters would be in hog heaven walking around with us.

Coming off the industry trade show ICAST, the vibe was probably the most positive it has been over past 10 years. Retailers were taking on bigger orders, and many manufacturers were having big upswings in sales.  Good news since the marine industry was beat up pretty hard over the credit crisis.  That vibe has apparently recently influenced the tournament side of things immensely.
 
BASS Sale
The top level tournament circuits needed a boost, an injection of passion and leadership.  BASS should certainly get both with the sale to McKinnis, Logan and Copeland.  We look for a new energy and significant changes over the next couple of years. The forums lit up with comments like “I am renewing my subscription," and “I’m putting the BASS sticker back on my truck and boat.” They still have a big mountain to climb but it helps when it's driven by folks passionate about fishing.
 
FLW changes
T. Boone Pickens getting involved and having Walmart back is a hugely positive thing for our sport as well as for the anglers. FLW Outdoors looks to be in a very strong place financially with the National Guard and Walmart heading up the sponsor/partner list and rumblings of a big new lineup of sponsors in the wings through the Walmart connection. In true Irwin fashion, we would guess that more good news is on the horizon with bigger payouts and more sponsors coming on board.
 
The top level tournaments are alive and well, and they look to have a strong future for all the young, aspiring anglers that someday hope to walk across the stage as a participant in the Bassmasters Classic or the Forrest Wood Cup.

Our buddies at Outdoor Music sent this sample from Rodney Clawson to share with our fishing friends after all the positive feedback on the Casey Ashley piece we put up last week. So we figured we'd give you a listen to this short sample.

As anglers, we talk a lot of jack. If you don't know what we mean by jack, we're talking about bragging about our catches, how good we catch them, our awesome equipment and any other way we can find to one up our fishing buddies. We love to hear a good story on a great fish catch or a new product. But mostly it's just to get a rise out of a good friend.

Thanks for playing along with our little trivia piece yesterday. We really loved some of the creative answers. It's always fun to take a look back on the history of product manufacturers.

Poor Boy's Baits have a strong following up around the Great Lakes, but their shapes are beginning to draw attention from more southern anglers. They made their mark in the industry with their unique hand pours like The Goby, The Darter and the Shakin Worm.

This is a pretty significant worm in the fishing industry. Can you guess what is significant about it? Leave us your comments below and we'll let you know the answer in a later blog. We wanted to let you stew a bit on this one.

Another ripple is going across the fishing industry today. Our good friend and great ambassador to the sport is leaving a top position in the sport. Here is the official release from FLW Outdoors.

We stopped in at the JB Custom Rods booth at the Forrest Wood Cup. JB was busy with several customers so we talked about the rods with Chris Wood from the NC State College Bass Fishing team and pro Guido Hibdon.

Ed Chambers was gracious enough to take us to the Zoom and WEC plants last week. We got some great information about how Zoom plastics are made and how impressive the WEC operation is as well.

Kevin Hawk of Ramona, Calif., had the biggest limit today and came from behind to win $500,000 plus another $100,000 from new FLW Outdoors partner T. Boone Pickens. Hawk weighed 15 pounds, 13 ounces before two dead fish penalties knocking his weight back to 14 pounds, 13 ounces. Still it was plenty to hold off the rest of the top six on the final day. Hawk beat nearest competitor Cody Meyer by 2 pounds, 6 ounces with a four-day weight of 50 pounds, 14 ounces.

Photo by Gary Mortenson / FLWOutdoors.com

One of America’s richest men is on board with tournament fishing in a big way. T. Boone Pickens announced his partnership with Irwin Jacobs of FLW Outdoors today at the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Lanier. Irwin Jacobs, Owner of FLW Outdoors, invited Pickens on stage and the two talked briefly about how the partnership came about.

Walmart representatives came to the stage and made a major commitment to comeback to FLW Outdoors, and they will be bringing their vendor group. More sponsorships, more boat and truck wraps, more money in the payouts all means more opportunities for anglers. They were co-branded on the background alongside  FLW Outdoors.

We ran across a pretty neat little product at the Forrest Wood Cup outdoor expo yesterday. This product is billed as a better lure retriever. We thought it was worth a try and bought a couple to test.

We had a unique privilege to visit with someone that all of us at Wired2Fish.com consider one of maybe five of the top innovators ever in fishing, Ed Chambers, owner of Zoom Bait Company. Alongside Chambers were Chris Baxter and his first and longest employed right-hand man, Ed Wortham. Chamber’s son Ed Jr. was away on vacation, but we were in for a real treat we could tell when we walked through the front door.

Kevin Hawk of Ramona, Calif., might have made the right moves the last year to break this thing wide open. Hawk was Ehrler's practice co-angler in west coast events last year while qualifying for the Forrest Wood Cup. He qualified through the Western Series events out west and is now leading the biggest FLW Outdoors event of them all. Hawk caught 14 pounds, 12 ounces. The 15-pound limit proved impossible on a brutally hot day that saw little wind and very skittish bass.

Today was setup day for the Outdoor Expo at the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup in Duluth, Ga. The teams were in the Gwinnett Center setting up their booths and we wandered around a little bit trying to get a sneak peak at some potentially cool stuff.

Visiting the Zoom plant was a highlight for Jason and Terry. Both have been avid Zoom customers for many years and meeting the mastermind behind the baits was a special treat. As a bonus Ed Chambers took us over to his WEC plant and we got to sit and talk shop for more than an hour about his crankbaits.

We've made it to our hotel in Duluth, Ga and we've already ran into Trisha Blake, VP of Marketting for FLW Outdoors. She said there is some big new announcements coming this week during the event. She felt like things had turned the corner and there would be some new announcements that will be good for everyone.

We went from ICAST to Triton sold to the same house as Ranger and Stratos, then to the Bassmaster Post Season, then to BASS being sold by ESPN and finally to the Forrest Wood Cup in Atlanta in a couple days (where some anglers believe there is a big announcement coming at the event).

ESPN Reaches Agreement in Principle to Sell BASS

The Mercury pro team dominated on the Elite Series this year and Mercury sent us short video with VanDam, Crews, Short, Reese and more talking about their outboards, their team and the performance they demand.

We always enjoy going to ICAST and visiting with our friends at Normark. They have a bunch of great brands in that group including Rapala, Trigger X, Luhr Jensen, Blue Fox and Terminator.

Curt Johston, owner of Zipper Worm Company, sent us a pack of his latest "monster" creation called The Goliath. It's an overwhelming large piece of plastic. We saw some jokes about new swimbaits that mimic baby seals after Shark Week started airing this week. Well this would probably fool a Great White with its size.