‘Un’believable in ‘06

FLW Outdoors’ best of 2006 highlighted

It’s that time of year again. Time for mistletoe, eggnog, in-laws, sledding, Christmas music played around the clock everywhere you go, ice fishing, snowmen, hot chocolate, Santa Claus, New Year’s resolutions and, of course, “best of 2006” countdowns on the radio, television and Internet – which is exactly what we have here.

`Un’believable in `06 is a rather unconventional list of who and what was making headlines in FLW Outdoors events during the 2006 season.

But there’s a twist: The reason for the `Un’ designation in `Un’believable is because the criteria for making this list is unspecified, unofficial and even somewhat unscientific.

Most importantly, the list includes innovations, lures, techniques, anglers and even fashions that were unassuming yet unrelenting during the season.

In fact, if there is any one quality that makes an item worthy of being `Un’believable, it’s the item’s ability to defy my own unabashed skepticism. In other words, if I underestimated something that became big in 2006, I have to own up and unveil it here and now.

So without further ado, let’s get under way.

A fashion Croc

OK, I know, fishermen are not fashionistas. In fact, that’s one reason I became a fisherman: It’s a form of fashion license to wear anything I want, from big floppy hats with bandanas to Day-Glo shirts with plaid shorts.

But every now and then the fishing world introduces a fashion statement that sweeps the nation. And if you don’t believe it, where do you think the “trucker hat” originated?

Hence, from the cutting-edge world of fishing fashion come Crocs, very unique-looking shoes that will definitely get you noticed, especially the bright yellow ones.

Just in case you don’t know what a Croc is, let me explain. It’s a kind of slip-on plastic gardening clog that comes in a dazzling array of colors.

Crocs broke out big on the saltwater side of FLW Outdoors this season. Kingfish and redfish anglers are quickly turning them into the new boat or deck shoe of the future.

And now for the painful part: Yes, I now own a pair of Crocs, and regrettably they’re not yellow.

Go ahead, laugh now, but when Tom and Katie start adorning little Suri in Crocs, just remember I had mine first.

Power-Pole

This innovation also comes from saltwater, specifically the Redfish Series, but it’s slowly making its way into the freshwater side of FLW Outdoors as well.

Despite the sound of its name, the Power-Pole is not a super-duper fishing rod capable of reeling in goliath grouper. Instead, it’s a remote-control anchor. With a touch of a remote wireless button (like the keyless entry for a vehicle), the Power-Pole, which attaches to a boat’s transom, uses a silent hydraulic motor to power a composite pole into the bottom, thereby holding the boat’s position in depths up to 8 feet.

Honestly, when I first saw this device, I thought that a remote-control anchor was a little excessive. But then again, I used to think the idea of an automatic garage-door opener was a little excessive, too.

I recently spent a day in a boat equipped with a Power-Pole, and I found the ability to freeze a boat’s position at a moment’s notice to be addictive. If you fish any kind of shallow water, it’s easy to identify with that sick feeling of drifting up on a likely spot too fast and spooking the fish. The Power-Pole alleviates this problem by allowing you to stop with the push of a button without blowing out your best area with full reverse thrusters on the trolling motor.

So do I actually own a Power-Pole?

No, I’m still using what I call the poor man’s Power-Pole: an anchor on a rope. And compared to a real Power-Pole, using a regular anchor is a lot like having to get out of my truck in the pouring rain to open a garage door manually.

Minn-Kota’s EM (engine-mount) trolling motor

OK, straight up, I don’t know a whole lot about walleye fishing. But I do know that walleye anglers typically have more motors on their boats than any other types of anglers. They have a big outboard motor, a smaller outboard motor (for trolling) and a bow-mounted trolling motor.

So you can only imagine my dismay when Minn-Kota introduced yet another type of motor for walleye anglers: an engine-mounted trolling motor, essentially a twin-propped electric motor that attaches to the shaft of the big outboard.

Certainly these guys are not going to mount a fourth power source on their boat, right?

Absolutely!

FLWOutdoors.com reporter Brett Carlson, who covers the FLW Walleye Tour, says the Minn-Kota EM electrics are so effective in slow-trolling that they are quickly becoming a standard on walleye boats.

Carlson contends that the precision speed control of the EM combined with the ability to steer the electric thrusters with the boat’s steering wheel played a big role in many top FLW Walleye Tour finishes this year.

Chatting up the competition

In early 2006, the ChatterBait took the fishing world by surprise as the winning lure of the first Stren Series event at Okeechobee.

From there, the lure became red-hot. So hot, in fact, this normally priced lure of six or seven bucks was going for upwards of $30 on eBay.

Upon first inspection of this jig attached to a metal blade, I chuckled, thinking I had certainly seen the contraption on late-night TV ads.

After getting seriously scalded on the ChatterBait all season long by co-anglers on the FLW Tour, I don’t think it’s so funny anymore.

Though the ChatterBait failed to reel in another major FLW win in 2006, it continued to play a role in top finishes throughout the season, as pros put this strange new cranking jig to use on a variety of fisheries.

Some seem to think the ChatterBait phenomenon has already run its course and is now seeking real estate in the back of tackle boxes.

Those who know the bait well, however, claim that anglers have not even scratched the surface on where and when this bait can be fished. Ripping the unique lure off deep ledges in the summer and slow-rolling it around deep structure are two techniques that ChatterBait specialists hope the rest of the fishing world overlooks.

The ChatterBait has also jumped over to the saltwater side as an excellent flats fishing lure, so don’t count this one out just yet.

Adams and Ramzinsky

Redfishing is great, but when FLW Outdoors took up tournament redfishing, I wondered how, given a slot limit (which all redfish anglers are subjected to), can any team dominate a circuit?

Catching fish consistently is one thing, but catching the exact right-sized fish consistently? I mean, who can do that tournament after tournament?

The Texas redfish team of Todd Adams and Tommy Ramzinsky enjoyed serving me up some blackened crow this season when the team absolutely dominated the Redfish Series Western Division with 587 points out of a possible 600 points.

The team’s tournament record for 2006 included a first, fourth, seventh and fifth place, leaving them 13 points shy of a perfect season.

Berkley Saltwater Gulp!

OK, so maybe I initially had some reservations about scented lures for saltwater fish. But I will admit, after I wrote the words “Gulp! 3-inch shrimp” about a hundred times during the 2006 Redfish Series season, I started to get the hint.

After using Saltwater Gulp myself, all I can say is that Berkley somehow managed to concoct a water-soluble formula that disperses scent into the water column like the smell of sizzling steaks wafting on a summer breeze.

I’ve watched redfish and trout literally sniff out these piscatorial porterhouses and then gobble them up.

Steve Kennedy

Yes, Anthony Gagliardi won the 2006 FLW Tour Angler of the Year and Dave Lefebre won the 2006 FLW Series Angler of the Year. Given these anglers’ respective levels of talent, that comes as no surprise to me.

But another FLW Tour angler who had a phenomenal year in 2006 was Steve Kennedy.

In 2006, Kennedy fished every pro-level tournament he could physically appear for, including the FLW Tour, FLW Series, BASS Elites and BASS Majors – a whopping 24 tournaments in all.

Admittedly, in early 2006, I figured Kennedy had bitten off way more than he could fish. With a pro event nearly every other week spread all across the country, I figured the massive miles, abbreviated practice periods and lack of time to tend to tackle would eventually catch up with him.

Oops. I made a slight miscalculation on that one.

Kennedy smoked across the country catching bass after bass, making top-10 after top-10 and cashing check after check.

In short, the Auburn, Ala., angler made eight top-10s in pro events, finished second in the BASS Angler of the Year race and won the FLW Tour event on Kentucky Lake.

All total, Mr. Kennedy – as I now call him – amassed a grand total of $354,000 in winnings this season.

No matter how you slice it, that’s some awesome angling.

Saying no to mono

After 2006, I have to ask, Does anyone use monofilament anymore?

During this season, I conducted dozens and dozens of interviews across FLW Outdoors events, and when the topic turned to fishing line for the top finishers, fluorocarbon and braided line dominated the tournament angling scene.

It seems straight fluorocarbon, straight braid and, better yet, braided line tipped with a fluorocarbon leader have made a hostile takeover in the fishing-line market.

Finesse fishing

Given the cyclical nature of tournament bass fishing, I honestly thought that the finesse-fishing phenomenon, specifically the shaky-head/jighead worm craze, would be long gone by now.

Wrong again. Instead of going away, this fishing trend seems to be hanging around like used finesse worms tossed into the bottom of a bass boat.

The jighead worm was responsible for four wins along the FLW Tour and FLW Series this season: Shin Fukae at Beaver Lake; Mike Hawkes at Lake Cumberland; Sean Hoernke at Lewis Smith Lake; and, of course, Brent Ehrler’s $500,000 Championship win at Logan Martin.

According to some tournament veterans like David Walker, who now regularly sports spinning rods, this trend is not going away anytime soon. Walker contends that as long as there are 200 boats fishing a lake for a week before a tournament, finesse fishing will be a permanent player in the game.

In fact, Walker gets my official Quote of the Year award for his candid description of why he picked up a spinning rod in 2006: “In order to make a living fishing these days, you have to learn what the fish want you to do, not what you want to do. … I needed to either learn how to finesse fish or find a different profession.”

By the way, for winning Quote of the Year, Walker receives a really sweet “I (heart) shaky-heading” bumper sticker for his truck.

Deep jigs

I saved this one for last, because if there was one dominant technique in the FLW Tour and FLW Series this year, it was dragging heavy jigs in deep water.

Anthony Gagliardi set the pace for deep jigging by winning the FLW Tour event on Lake Murray in February.

Just after that in March, George Jeane Jr. dragged football-head jigs at Pickwick for a victory.

Then Steve Kennedy used a football-head jig on the ledges of Kentucky Lake for an FLW Tour win in May.

Sam Lashlee was next in the football-head line with an FLW Series win on Old Hickory in June.

And recently in October, Dion Hibdon used a deep jig on Lake of the Ozarks to win.

Out of a combined 12 FLW Tour and Series events in 2006, deep jigs won five of them.

Given the number of lures and techniques available to pro bass anglers these days, if you would have told me at the beginning of 2006 that deep jigs would win nearly half the events, I’d have lain on the floor and laughed. Simply unbelievable.

So that’s it. I think it’s safe to say that FLW Outdoors’ pros did a fantastic job of proving me wrong in 2006, and I can only hope they do so again in 2007.

The FLWOutdoors.com staff wishes you an `Un’believably Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.