The Big One Show was better than ever for lure fishing

What a weekend up at Farnborough. I have worked in the fishing tackle industry for nearly thirty years now. I know a hell of a lot of really good people, and I love getting to see so many of them like I did over the weekend. I am very happy working on my own from home, but grabbing my passport and coming out of Cornwall into the big wide world is always a buzz when you get to chat about all things fishing and industry with so many fascinating people. I don’t do fishing tackle company politics and I am so proud to work within fishing…………….

The amount of anglers who came up to me over the weekend to talk about bass fishing was staggering. It got so busy for a few hours on Saturday morning that I didn’t quite dare move away from the Savage Gear stand in the Lure Live area, and also the mightily impressive Penn stand in the main arena - for fear of getting literally swept away by so many visitors to the show. The mightily impressive Predator Tackle lot essentially host and run the huge and growing Lure Live area of the show, then many of the various brands come along to help support them. I really like the Predator Tackle lot, and wow do they sell a massive amount of highly impressive lure fishing tackle. There was also more lure fishing in one corner of the main (carp) arena, including Penn, Tuna Gear and various others. The whole show is seriously impressive and really well run.

And as you can guess, I got to see a hell of a lot of really interesting gear, plus I got to talk to some very experienced anglers about various lure fishing stuff which I think might have some crossover into my world as such. The growing amount of Z-Man lures and terminal tackle that Predator tackle sells is staggering, indeed I saw a whole load of Z-Man soft plastics I had never even seen before. Some of the Molix and plenty of the OMTD gear has so much potential in the saltwater fishing world. I saw so many different paddletails to be fished in so many different ways all over the various Predator Tackle stands, indeed if I had been less controlled I could have so easily come away essentially losing money over the weekend!

I really liked the look of the Illex Magic Swing Tail twitchbait-style soft plastic, with the 7’’ and 5’’ versions looking of particular interest for our bass fishing. Some of the Illex paddletails looked incredible, especially the Magic Z Shad in the various sizes. There was a scary amount of creature bait related stuff all over the Lure Live area at the show, mainly because these lures are so prevalent in the perch and zander fishing worlds especially. What this produces is so many different ways to rig and fish these types of soft plastics. I have no background at all within freshwater lure fishing, but the more I am trying my best to learn, the more I think that a number of their techniques and types of soft plastics surely have various applications within the saltwater fishing world. I got to sleep about 11pm on Saturday night in the hotel, then woke up at 3am with a start thinking about all this sort of stuff. It was a long wait until I could get a half-decent cup of coffee when the hotel opened up for breakfast!

I was itching to see some of the new SG8 freshwater lure rods from Savage Gear. I was obviously nothing to do with these new rods (but I am a hell of a lot to do with the new SG4 and SG8 Defiance ranges of bass lure rods coming out in May I believe, plenty of details to come in due course). There are a fair few interesting looking rods within the new SG8 freshwater range though, and I got to see one of them in particular which felt incredible for shore based lure fishing for bass. There is another SG8 freshwater rod in particular which I think is going to be very interesting for the whole “bottom contact” style of subtler bass fishing, but I need to try and persuade the Savage Gear grownups to send me one to try. I also got to pick up and waggle a couple of the new Westin W8 SBASS lure rods. Help!

I haven’t picked up a beachcaster for a long time now, but a friend showed me the (not cheap) Tidal Elite range of shore rods from Penn. I can just about remember how my own beachcasters tended to feel back in the day, and I was absolutely blown away by how light and responsive and “fishable” these Tidal Elite rods felt. I don’t have a desire to go back to bait fishing, but there’s a part of me that is very interested to see how it would feel to see if I could even remember how to load one of these beachcasters up! I must admit to also wondering what a 10’ version to say 80g could feel like for heavy lure fishing and then light bait fishing from the shore for say bass, smoothounds and gilthead bream perhaps? I know Penn are not going to make me a rod like this, but at least I can ask!

I also very rarely do any boat fishing these days, but a whole bunch of the Penn related people I caught up with and also met over the weekend were raving about the various Penn Battalion Solid carbon boat rods. You can literally tie these rods in knots with how far the tips will bend if required, and like with the beachcasters I think back to the boat rods I remember from back in the day - then I pick up these solid carbon wonders and it’s incredible. What took me back almost the most was the (cheapish) price of them. From conventional UK-style boat rods through to slow jigging, light jigging, heavy jigging, I was amazed. Sure got my brain ticking away.

I caught up with a really nice lad from Weymouth Angling who told me firstly that I had to see some of the new Sakura lure rods (help!), but he also told me that the wader and outdoor wear company Grundens was at the show with a stand. You know that I keep a very close eye on all things fishing tackle, both in the UK and around the world. I have been very aware of how much traction Grundens have been gaining in the wader world especially in the US, and I have been itching to see their gear for a good while now. Thanks to this lad I went and found the stand and I ended up having a long chat with a couple of the guys there. I get a very specific problem on a few waders I have tried for example, but almost nobody I talk to will recognise this is a problem. I was so pleased when the main wader bloke knew exactly what I was talking about, and the part of the Grundens waders where I get this problem has been specifically designed NOT to develop this problem!

Talk about fascinating, and they were so generous in taking the time to answer my endless questions. They even allowed me to try a pair of their awesome looking Grundens Vector (stockingfoot) waders. Very, very interesting. Not cheap, but I dialled down into their returns and repair policy, and with how it works it makes things very interesting indeed for saltwater anglers. And yes, I asked the questions - would you be happy knowing these Grundens Vector waders were getting a hammering in saltwater? A resounding yes, because they were designed from the harsh and demanding Scandinavian saltwater sea trout market. A lot of their gear looked so interesting, including their Grundens Bedrock wading boots. Watch this space. Waders and boots and waterproof jackets are easily as important to me as rods and reels. I got back home last night with my brain bouncing away. Hope you all had a good weekend, thanks so much to the many anglers who talked to me at The Big One Show, I am heading up to Glasgow later in the week for the Glasgow Angling Centre Open Weekend this coming weekend, hope to see some of you there…………..

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