That was some weekend. I tend to really enjoy fishing shows like these because I obviously enjoy meeting anglers, and I love talking about fishing to a lot of different people. As much as I believe that The Big One Show has historically been a carp fishing show - the main carp fishing hall is massive and almost scary-busy - I take my hat off big time to Predator Tackle for taking what has to have been a risky financial gamble last year to create this “Lure Live” section of the show. It obviously went well enough last year because Predator Tackle did the same thing this year albeit on a more expansive scale, then people like me who do consultancy work with fishing tackle companies come along to help support the brand(s) and do demos and so on……….
I stayed at a remarkably grotty Travelodge hotel in Farnborough with the Pure Fishing lads. I know some of them already and I am getting to know a bunch more. I was the token lure angler there, but I’ll happily talk life and fishing with any anglers, and coming from somebody who has worked within the fishing industry for 25+ years now, for the most part it’s populated by really good people who are obsessed with fishing. I am not the best sleeper in the world and especially so in hotels. I woke up at 4.30am on Saturday morning and went out for a 5k run on the wild streets of Farnborough at 5am, then on Sunday morning I woke up at 2.50am and couldn’t for the life of me get back to sleep. My brain was seriously bouncing away with some of the lure gear I got to see at the show. I got back home yesterday evening after the show and I was out for the count by 9pm!
Predator Tackle is predominantly a freshwater lure fishing concern, but because there is an increased crossover a lot of the gear obviously suits all of us. Many of the brands had also brought lots of lure fishing tackle that is designed specifically for saltwater, indeed me as the Savage Gear saltwater lure bloke had a nice little section with a fair bit of stuff. I was really pleased to have plenty of the awesome, very long-casting, and very shallow-swimming Savage Gear Gravity Shallow hard lures in my section, with a big new price drop as well (more to come). There were plenty of Shimano, Daiwa, Penn and ABU spinning reels just around the corner from me as well.
I got to waggle some of the very high-end Westin lure rods, indeed that is part of what woke me up so early on Sunday morning. Bloody hellfire there’s a 9’ 8-36g W10 Finesse Shad rod which is very high-end and which feels about as special as a lure fishing rod can get. I had to walk away and stop drooling at that one. I really like the look of their CreCraw Creature Baits as well, and their BullTeez Shadtail makes a lot of visual sense to me as a bass fishing junkie. I didn’t dare spend too much time waggling that specific W10 rod especially because I wasn’t sure I could control my addiction to lure fishing rods.
I hadn’t realised that there’s a strong connection between Predator Tackle and the UK distributor of Z-Man and Favorite rods (tell me this Z-Man Mulletron LT 4.5 inch isn’t going to be rather interesting for our bass!). I had a fascinating chat with a Ukrainian guy from Favorite rods, and what it takes for somebody like him to get to a show like this is incredible but also really sad. I could have talked to him for hours about his country and the war and how they are learning to literally live with it now, but of course we had to talk about fishing rods as well. Wow, wow, wow. There are a number of brand new rods in some brand new ranges, and a whole bunch of them have the sort of lengths and specs which will work really well for bass, wrasse and pollack anglers. I reckon I found two or three of the most perfect lure wrasse rods you could hope to pick up for example, and for bass fishing there were some incredible rods which I spent too much time drooling over. I hope to get my hands on some of these Favorite rods for testing and reviewing on here. I know you can’t tell nearly enough from waggling alone, but I am pretty confident I got to see THE most impressive sub-£100 lure fishing rods I have ever come across. I don’t say that lightly either. More on this to come I hope……………..
Predator Tackle does the OMTD brand of Italian hooks and jigheads etc. If you are after some weedless swimbait style hooks with heavier belly-weights then have a look at these OMTD hooks as per above and below, here on the Predator Tackle website. I really like the look of the ones below especially because of where the belly-weight sits. I will default to “my” Savage Gear 4/0 and 6/0 weedless corkscrew (swimbait) hooks when I need no more than their 2g and 3g respective belly-weights, but I want to check out some of these OMTD hooks because those Berkley Fusion19 Weight Swimbait Hooks I really like have annoyingly been discontinued.
I don’t have much desire to own a fishing boat, but I think I’d like this one below please! It’s the most fascinating sort of mini-RIB style boat on the Shimano stand which was designed from the ground up for lure fishing. My crappy iPhone above doesn’t do it any justice at all, but I could see myself fishing from this thing and also using it to access a lot of shore marks where I can’t get to for various reasons. It’s called the Ribcraft R350 and you can see photos and details about it here. Could be a good stocking present?!
Anyway, I could go on and on about The Big One Show, but I need to get on with a load of work before I fly up to Glasgow on Friday for their 2024 Spring Open Weekend. I have wanted to see what I believe is the massive Glasgow Angling Centre for a long time now, and this weekend I will. I won’t be talking about anything rugby related because I can’t take the shame of what happened against Scotland the other day. What I will be doing though is a bunch of talks and demos and so on, so I hope to see some of you there. Come and talk to me about all things fishing, black metal or heart attacks, but let’s please gloss over the Six Nations!