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Norman, OK – In case you haven't realized it by now, professional bass fishing is every bit as much about marketing as it is about the ability to put brown or green fish in the livewell.
It couldn't be more obvious than the logos on the anglers' hats, their screen-printed jerseys or their gaudy wrapped boats. This is an expensive sport to pursue. No bucks, no bass. No return on investment, no dollars in your pocket.
While we recognize the anglers' achievements and the human interest stories that accompanied them, we also need to take time out to recognize the sponsors with appropriate cheers, or in one case jeers.
Terminator Drops Skeet
First we'll go with the jeers.
Terminator Lures, the first company to bring a titanium spinnerbait to the masses, had a good reputation among the fishing public. Visible endorsers like Jimmy Houston and Charlie Ingram joined them from the get-go, and later they acquired a quality staff including quiet Kansan Brent Chapman and more vocal Californian Skeet Reese.
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Most of Terminator's products were marketing successes. Their varied jigs, spinnerbaits and buzzbaits were seen as quality products and were widely available.
But they made the marketing miscue of the year when they dropped Skeet right before the Classic. He professed not to know why they did it. Indeed, he had just gotten his tournament jersey with the Terminator logo firmly in place. There never was a really good explanation made public. |
No matter what the reason, they lost a ton of publicity when they dropped the blonde basser. Immediately after the news surfaced, he finished second at the Classic, then went on to a season for the ages – which included a win at the Potomac, an Angler of the Year title, and more TV time than just about anyone this side of Oprah. The folks at Berkley, Champion, Mercury and his other sponsors certainly had much to cheer about, while the Terminator crew could just sit at the home office and twist their unbreakable wires in a knot.
KVD: Making Strike King Sexy
Fish fast, take no prisoners, win a lot of bucks.
Remember the 2001 Classic in New Orleans? Kevin Van Dam caught most of his winning fish on a jig, but on stage he could barely contain himself talking about the new Strike King Wild Thang. He apparently just loved to say the name and could barely contain a goofy grin every time he said it.
That event was when KVD cemented his place in bass fishing history. That was another Classic win and over a million bucks ago, though. If memory serves, he was still Kevin then, the KVD alter-ego not having been created.
| This year's tackle box gem was his standby Strike King crankbaits in the new Sexy Shad color. While other manufacturers had produced similar color patterns in the past, KVD was apparently the one who convinced Strike King to add it to their line and it was at least partially responsible for both of his victories and for who knows how many other three and four pounders onto the deck of his boat. |
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This is KVD. He could probably catch a winning string with one of his kids' school art projects, but he swears that the color made all the difference. That's downright scary. He doesn't need better tools.
Size Matters?
Remember the line in Jaws about needing a bigger boat?
Only a decade ago, a 150 HP outboard was the standard on tournament rigs. Some top pros, like Denny Brauer and Tommy Biffle, still ran eighteen foot class rigs. But the tours, and in particular the Elite Series, have skewed toward bigger bodies of water in recent years.
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When Guntersville, the Potomac and Clear Lake may not make it into your list of the year's 5 roughest waters, it's a big water tour. Sure, Champlain and Amistad have the ability to get boat-sinking rough, but the true bad boys of the bass circuits are the Great Lakes.
Tracker Marine recognized that, and they wanted to put their sponsored anglers in the right tools to win (and get back safely under almost any conditions), so they gave Timmy Horton and Brian Snowden deep-hulled walleye-style boats in addition to their bass rigs, specifically for the Erie Derby. |
Horton was ecstatic about it, noting that while other anglers had to pick their routes carefully even on mildly windy days, he could just point the boat and give it gas. He didn't have a particularly good tournament, but you have to wonder where else this could go. Certainly competitors have used jet boats in the past, and now these walleye-catchers. What's the next frontier in sponsor support?
Power Poling
When the Power Pole, a retractable anchoring system that is affixed to the stern of a boat, first showed up on a few pros' boats in the early half of this decade, it was seen as an oddity. Sure, it made sense for the few Rojas-esque sight fishermen, but what else was it good for?
But what was then purely a novelty crossover item from saltwater flats boats is now an integral part of many bassers' equipment. It would be easy to say that it's not just for sight fishermen any more, but the fact is, just like the Power Pole's meteoric rise, one major change among anglers over the past decade is that now just about everyone is adept at catching bedding bass.
Gary Klein ran their wrap. Shaw Grigsby, with years of saltwater experience, was an early adapter. Florida angler Chris Lane said it played a major role in his breakout season. But the truth is that it's not just for fish you can see. It enables the pros to hold their boat against current, or steady against the edge of a grass mat they want to flip. |
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Perhaps the truest testament to its value came from Charlie Hartley, who credited his high finish at the Potomac to the device, despite noting that he wasn't sponsored by the company.
Kennedy Stands Up
If he's not already there, then Steve Kennedy is well on the fast track to becoming a superstar of the sport. Only a few short years ago he fished tournaments out of a smaller, older Ranger, and before that he competed out of an aluminum boat.
You'd think he'd jump on any sponsorship deals he could get. But in Borat's words – NOT!
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Kennedy has been true to himself and uniquely savvy in terms of the deals he's accepted or rejected. Clifford Wiedman of Kistler Rods noted that Kennedy fished with their sticks for several months before he agreed to a deal. He wanted to make sure they would withstand and enhance his fishing style. Once they signed him, the dividends were immediate, as he set records by winning the Clear Lake event and noted that the Kistler Rod he used made a difference in his ability to learn the swimbait game. |
But perhaps more significant that the deals he took are the ones he rejected.
Kennedy had the opportunity to join the elite Toyota team, but chose not to do so because he'd rather travel with his motor home than out of a pickup truck. He also sported few additional logos on his Kinami Baits jersey and boat wrap. He bought his Ranger with his own cash and with no additional financial support from the company he chose to downplay the identifying signage. He may look like an aw shucks country boy, but he's a savvy veteran of the promotional game, and willing to turn down a few bucks now to maximize and maintain his value later.
Jewel of the Tour
A jig is a jig, right? Just a hunk or lead, a hook, a skirt and maybe a weedguard or some rattles. How different can they possibly be from one another?
Apparently different enough that a small manufacturer with quality components and designs can make a dent in the dog-eat-dog baitmaking world. Not to denigrate
Pradco, Strike King, Lucky Craft, Berkley and their ilk in any way, but there are still some smaller companies that occasionally take a disproportional share of the market through something other than a monster promotional campaign.
Jewel, based in Missouri, has been well-known in the Ozark region for a long time, primarily for the jigs designed by father and son team Jim and Troy Eakins. That regional notoriety didn't figure to change too much even when Mike McClelland used their products to dominate the field at nearby Grand Lake last year. But 2007 was a breakout year for the company on the Elite Series at a national level.
This year, McClelland brought the jig east to Clarks Hill to gain another Elite Series win. Then a short time later, rookie and crooner Casey Ashley won another eastern event, at Virginia's Smith Mountain Lake, on a Jewel product. In addition to the Eakins Jig, they make football head models, flipping jigs and finesse jigs, and they're all stalwarts of the pro tours, even if not many pros talk about them. |
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On a related note, another smallish jig maker, Omega Tackle, scored big when they signed Derek Remitz to a wrap deal. His first act as an Elite Series pro was to win the Amistad rodeo, courtesy of his sponsor's products.
In some respects, the little guys took on Goliath and gave 'em a few butt whippings.
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