Ish Monroe Travels to China
Editor’s Note: The writer's opinions and observations expressed here are her own, and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views, policies or positions of FLW.
Among the benefits of having sponsors are the unique opportunities that they provide to you. For instance, during this offseason I got to travel to China for the first time in my life to work with one of my main sponsors, River2Sea, designing and perfecting the Ish Monroe Series. I stopped in Hong Kong on my way there and back. It’s so high-tech and advanced; it’s amazing.
It was reassuring and refreshing for me to see that China was not the something I had painted in my head. It was not all sweatshops and pitiful child labor. These were happy people who wanted to work. Don’t get me wrong, they work hard, but they’re happy doing it, and they genuinely appreciate any opportunity.
Several of the employees for the factory lived in nearby dorms. This is common at most factories. The employees travel to their home villages for extended holidays such as the Chinese New Year. They take a lot of pride in themselves and always keep up their appearances.
My time there was spent at the practice tank for six to eight hours a day, showing the engineers precisely what action the baits needed. When I was not at the tank I was sitting next to the painter, perfecting the colors that I wanted each of the baits to have. Communication was so much easier when sitting beside them and showing what I was talking about rather than attempting to do so through emails.
I’m really excited about the line of hard baits that we’ve developed. Sure, I’m known for my frogs, but a pro needs to be able to do everything, including being design-savvy for various types of lures. I know what I want baits to do, and that’s what informs my designs. My square-bill crankbait swims differently than anything else on the market. Most anglers won’t notice the difference. However, the difference they’ll see is in the number of bass that they’ll catch using it. I also have a new Jack Flippin’ Hook coming out that has the same hooking action as a hook tied on with a snell knot, except you don’t have to tie a snell knot.
My goal is to design baits that anybody can use right out of the package, baits that don’t need any tweaking. I don’t use any super-secret baits: What you see is exactly what I use. I believe that the more fish you catch, the more you’ll become involved in fishing. That’s especially true for kids who, hopefully, will be hooked on fishing for life (no pun intended).
The trip to China was not all work; I was able to play a little too. I consider myself to be a food connoisseur, and I was not disappointed with the culinary offerings. Most of the food was so pretty you didn’t want to eat it, but it smelled so good you just dug in. I was most impressed by the giant bowls that were about 2 feet long and 1 1/2 feet wide, and filled with ice with sashimi salmon perfectly sliced and placed on top. I really took my time eating and appreciating all the awesome goodness.
The low point of the trip was leaving. I really wish I had more time to explore the countryside and perhaps do some fishing. In particular, I would have loved to participate in a tournament there. Maybe next year!
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