Viva Las Vegas

Hit the jackpot in 2004 with these new products introduced at ICAST

As people baked in 115-degree heat outside, 6,000 fishing-industry representatives crowded the air-conditioned 209,000-square-foot Las Vegas Convention Center for the 2003 International Convention of Allied Sportfishing Trades show in July.

Sponsored by the American Sportfishing Association, the ICAST Show unites buyers for wholesalers and retailers with tackle companies from around the world. While buyers and sellers inked million-dollar deals, a cadre of outdoor writers explored the aisles looking for interesting products.

Row after row of colorful and ingenious products screamed for attention, but time prevented an in-depth examination of everything. While no compilation can truly do justice to all the great products, a few items stood out.

Just about every lure and jig manufacturer displayed a plethora of red hooks. According to theory, the color red entices strikes because fish flare their gill plates, exposing blood-engorged gills, when feeding. Red also imitates blood in the water. The gill-flashing and simulated blood sparks a feeding frenzy in other fish.

True or not, many companies joined the red-hook frenzy. Buzzbaits, spinner baits and other lures accented by bloodred hooks were everywhere.

Mizmo introduced its Insider Weedless Jighead. Instead of a hook attached to a lead jighead, this system employs a cylindrical lead weight attached to a red hook. The weight slips inside a soft-plastic tube, worm or creature bait.

On such jigheads, anglers might want to add a YUM Zellamander with Live Prey Technology. With LPT, baits give off enzymes mimicking what baitfish in distress release. Designed by Zell Rowland, a bass pro, the bait resembles a cross between a lizard and a creature bait with two tails.

Berkley introduced a line of Gulp! soft baits mated to PowerBait scents. Similar in appearance and texture to plastic, Gulp! baits biodegrade into all-natural components. While ordinary plastic worms, grubs and tubes remain in the environment for many years, Gulp! products break down in less than a year, an advancement that earned Gulp! the ASA Best of Show prize for soft baits.

Lucky Craft won the Best of Show award for hard baits. The suspending Live Pointer 95SP sports a clever multiple-jointed body that undulates like a snake. A flexible double steel wire running through the body allows the bait to move with a lifelike motion.

Rapala introduced a Glass Shad Rap. The transparent glass body creates a “prismatic glass three-dimensional look,” said Jim Morton, a Normark staff pro. The lure draws in ambient light and bounces it back in the same color in all directions.

At night, lures can’t reflect light that doesn’t exist. Several companies developed lighted baits or glow-in-the dark products. The eyes on a Lindy jighead glow like a shrimp.

Taking light technology a step further, Light N’ Strike added strobe lights to several lures. With a motion-activation system, the strobes flash when the bait moves. The lures come in shallow- and deep-diving crankbait, a lipless crankbait and surface-walker versions.

For added enticement, anglers might want to add a pinch of Top Secret fish attractant to a hook. Dip a hook in water and then dip it in the “amino gel.” The powder coagulates into a gelatinous substance that slowly dissolves in water. As it dissolves, it gives off a scent trail. The powder comes in several flavors for enticing trout, catfish, walleyes, bass, stripers, pike and several saltwater species.

Red even filtered into the line market. Cajun Red Cast, a Shakespeare product, features low-stretch Cajun Red Lightnin’ line. Sizes range from 2-pound-test to 20-pound-test. The red line disappears in as little as 3 feet of water, said Shakespeare spokesman Larry Tankersley.

Stren won the Best of Show honors for its Super Braid line. Using a “fiber impregnation” system called Advanced MicroBond Technology, the fibers adhere to the line and become part of it. This gives Super Braid the strength and sensitivity of braided lines with the knot-tying durability and other attributes of monofilament line.

For the second straight year, Sirrus Rods won Best of Show in its category. This year, the company won for Spectra rods. Spectra rods use “Advance Filament Technology” that combines “spectra fibers” with graphite. A removable 4-inch butt extension gives anglers the option of using a longer or shorter grip. Spectra rods come in eight models, five for bait-casting and three for spinning reels.

Quarrow Rods took the guesswork out of selecting the correct tool for the lure of choice with its DreamCatcher rod series. According to O.T. Fears, a bass pro who designed them, anglers just need to read “crankbait,” “spinner bait,” “Carolina rig,” “pitching,” “jerkbait” or “flipping” on the rod base to know what to do with it.

“Many fishermen use the wrong rods for their baits,” Fears said. “Usually, it’s either too limber so they don’t get a good hook-set, or it’s too stiff to throw properly. If someone wanted to buy one rod for all types of bass fishing, I would recommend a 6-foot or 6-foot-6-inch medium-action rod. With that, an angler could throw spinner baits, crankbaits, worms, flukes and just about any lure.”

Anglers might want to attach a new Shimano Calcutta TE 200DC reel to their rods. This reel took Best of Show honors for its incorporation of digital technology into a spool braking system. A micro “digital control circuit board” derives power from the energy generated by the rotation of the spool. The circuits control the speed of the spool rotation through an electronic braking system to prevent backlashes. It checks itself every thousandth of a second during use. Although not completely backlash-free, the computer technology enables anglers to make long casts with less worry about tangles.

On the other end of the spectrum, Zebco redesigned the venerable Model 33. The Zebco 33 first hit store shelves in 1954. To celebrate 50 years of service with more than 40 million Model 33s sold, Zebco decided to revert to 1970s technology, building reels very similar to the ones they built 30 years ago. Jeff Pontius, Zebco president, called it “reinventing the reel that reinvented fishing.”

The “new” Zebco 33 uses more metal in its construction. It features a one-piece body, an ergonomically designed thumb button, soft-touch handle knobs and a nickel-plated, corrosion-resistant drag system. An “Auto Bait Alert” system produces sounds to alert anglers when fish bite.

Incidentally, the 2004 version of the Zebco 33 retails for about $14.99. In 1954, the original sold for about $19.50, Pontius said. Many professional and amateur anglers fishing today started fishing with Zebco products.

Keeping its tradition of involving kids in fishing, Zebco also won a Best of Show award for a line of products featuring the popular SpongeBob SquarePants. The company sells several fishing kits, including three floating spin-cast combinations, and many accessories using SpongeBob characters.

Plano Molding Company won a Best of Show for tackle management with its CDS Utility Box. Long an innovator of plastic storage systems, the company demonstrated new shatterproof clear plastic for use on many products. One company representative dropped a shot put on a section of plastic. The plastic did not break, causing the shot put to bounce.

Lowrance Electronics won Best of Show for electronic boating accessories with the X-104 electronic sounder. This unit features 256 colors in a high-resolution dual screen. On one side of the split screen, people can check their location on a GPS system while looking for fish, and on the other side of the screen, they can check depth and water temperature.

In another imaginative electronic product, Nature Visions introduced a hands-free underwater viewing system. This allows anglers to fish while controlling an underwater camera with their feet.

Pure Fishing won Best in Show for fishing accessories with its digital lip grip scale. Lead Masters won in the terminal tackle category for powder-coated jigheads. And many other companies demonstrated excellent products. However, time and space simply do not allow the mention of all of them.