Honest question for sponsors...

[Vorlin]

Thanks for taking a moment to look this over and give it a little thought. Before I go any further, I'd like to apologize for any typos... it's 1:30 AM and I can't sleep. Brainstorms at this hour can be inspiring, however writing about them at this hour can lead to entertaining liberties being taken with the English language. Please consider these things and, if nothing else, have a chuckle if I come up with a particularly unusual mistake or three.

I'm 40 years old, no child, and I'm a recreational fisherman for the time being. Just like many other 40 year olds, my doctor has spoken that beloved, hyphenated word: "hyper-tension". This is an interesting medical condition that can be either relieved by the wonderful fresh air, clear water and peaceful mornings to be found while catching fish or exacerbated by the cold water, sand in the reel, bird's nest on the first cast and lost $5 lure on the third of any typical day fishing in the reality that most of us actually have to live in.

If you're thinking that I can turn a phrase or two, then my time trying to type at 1:45 AM hasn't been completely wasted... on to the point of this excersize...

As one who is experienced enough in the world to have some sort of small clue about life, the universe and everything, I am a *very* firm believer in the common position that you have to believe in a product *sincerely* before you can effectively promote it. Any fool can promote anything... but the strong light of insincerity shines through the thin veil of bull.... so if someone is promoting it because they have to, it shows. To effectively promote something, you can't promote it at all. Instead, you're giving someone an honest tip about something that you really do believe is going to work for them and help them catch more fish! Instead of selling them something, you're helping them out... and it really makes a difference in what the listener hears.

That said, I see that I have over 7000 characters left that I could type, should I choose to... but if you think that I'm going to use all of them, at this insane hour of the morning, then you're almost smart enough to be certified to hold the signs that stop traffic in a construction zone.

Ok, ten minutes to two.... why am I writing this? Oh yea...

I had an epiphany.... yes, I'll wait while you go look it up on dictionary ***... all better now? Good...

I realized that the only people who can afford to check out the wide assortment of tackle and truly find out what works for them are those who don't have to pay for it because they're sponsored by said tackle companies. Just as in banking, where the only people who can get a loan are those who don't need one, those of us who are trying to figure out what will work can't affford to buy all the things that we need to test out so that we can see what we need to buy, can really use and, therefore, might actually be able to promote effectively.

So, in all sincerity, I was wondering if any sponsors are willing to loan out or give one or two LOW COST pieces here and there for honest to goodness field testing. I'm not talking about expensive tackle like cranks, torpedos, or poppers that definitely need to go to those representatives who have prooved that they are worth investing in... I'm talking about a few various soft plastics, jig heads, etc. that can be sent out to potential candidates at little cost to the company.

Perhaps if a manufacturer received the following inquiry, something might be able to be done:

"Joe fisherman" said he's often fishing in a shallow, clear river with a bedrock and sand bottom that's strewn with boulders and class 3 rapids, his prime target is smallmouth bass and the early fall has been overcast, rainy and warmer than usual.

Ok, so Jane manufacturer might select 3 or 4 soft plastics that are targeted for those fish under those conditions and send ONLY 3 or 4 of each type to Joe fisherman.

If Joe really can use your product, he shouldn't need more than 3 of each type of your plastics, that are a good fit for his situation, in order to find out... and if he does have success then you can be sure he'll be contacting you for more. If he doesn't have success then this could be useful to you too. Joe can still be very helpful by letting you know exactly how it was fished, if any other baits were working that day and, if so, what. Call it cheap R&D.

So far, I've shown a knack for nailing bass when no one else is catching... however, that doesn't mean a whole lot when I'm only getting one or two keepers and no one else gets a nibble. It's not like I'm hitting a limit, not even close! But, I seem to be able to get *some* results when others get nothing so there may be hope me yet.

For the record, at the moment I can only recommend three products from personal experience. They are:

1) Arkie Salty Crawlin' Grubb in watermelon / black... this sucker nailed a 13" largemouth on 9/16/06 at Motts Run Reservoir, Fredericksburg VA, when NO ONE else had anything larger than 4 inches in length, not even panfish, within 2 hours of my catching that bass. For an hour after that, no one got anything else of any size (not even me!)... then the reservoir closed at dusk. This bait, in this color, is recommended extremely highly by others and that's why I'm trying it out. One gentleman has caught 110 bass in one day with it, 2 of those fish were citation fish. "110???" you say? Yeap... the grub is around 5 inches long and it seems that any bass larger than 6.5 inches tries to inhale it! Yes he got 110 fish... no, not even one quarter of those were keepers! Let's get real here folks... this bait catches fish, but it's up to YOU to make sure that you're targeting the dominant fish and not the 4 inch long bass that hatched a few months ago!

2) Strike King's "Shaw's Pro Series" 6 inch straight worm in pumpkin. This thing has become my go-to and consistently catches large and small mouthed bass in excess of three pounds when most other baits aren't being touched.

3) Catfish, not bass related: Sonny's Super Sticky Channel Catfish Bait, Blood Formula. Suspended off the bottom with a sponge, this stuff is a catfish magnet!

Ok, 2:20 and I'm callin this off for the night. If any soft plastics makers are willing to shoot three or four individual baits to someone to see if that someone can do anything with them and, maybe, proove useful either as a rep or in R&D, let me know in PM or a reply here.

If nothing else, hopefully it was entertaining... and hopefully I won't read this tomorrow and wonder what the **** I was thinking!

Vorlin