Today I had a great meeting with Jeff Cope and Jay Geeding from Wal-Mart Headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Both gentlemen are Category Managers for Pure Fishing(Berkley, Penn, etc.) and asked me to assist in providing customers with a better saltwater selection and improving the overall direction of the fishing department in many stores. Started the morning at the Gulf Breeze Wal-Mart and I hope I offered some creative and thoughtful ideas to improve the saltwater choices in the fishing department. I thought I had a pretty firm grasp on the fishing industry but, like with fishing, there’s always much more to learn and I did. Well, this is where the productivity ended. After our meeting, we decided to jump on my boat and go stick a few redfish and trout. We weren’t too excited about the temps, wind, water clarity and bright blue skies but they insisted that I knew what I was doing and they just wanted to get out on the water. That’s exactly what we did. I honestly can’t remember the last time I(or clients) didn’t catch a single fish in ANY conditions!! The timing was classic as these guys aren’t exactly the company you want to have a below average trip with! Fished for two hours, got 3 decent bites and saw a handful of redfish but incredibly, they just wouldn’t pick up the bait. Did the earth counter-rotate today? Oh well, I know where not to go for tomorrow’s and Saturday’s...
Read MoreRedfish University at Bass Pro Shops Spring Classic-February 27-March 13
The 2010 Bass Pro Shops Spring Classic in Destin will take place February 27-March 13, 2010. Both weekends, I will be at the Bass Pro Shops reel counter assisting anglers and Bass Pro employees with Pure Fishing reels, rods, Gulp! baits, superlines, fluorocarbon, etc. We also have some Redfish University seminars planned. Here’s a list of the Pure Fishing promotions we will be offering during the Spring Classic. Thanks, Eric Holstman First weekend: Reel Trade-in (Abu Garcia, Pflueger, Penn and Mitchell reels) February 26 thru March 3 Bring in a reel that you no longer use, and for donating the old reel, you will receive a coupon towards the purchase of a new reel. The discount is scaled depending on the value of the new reel you purchase. See a fishing associate for more details. HOT DEALS – ABU GARCIA · Any REVO reel over $169 get a FREE pair of Wiley-X glasses ($126.00 value) · Any reel from $89.99 to $139.99 get a $10 mail-in rebate – (C4, Revo S, Kalex 6000, Soron reels) PFLUEGER · Any reel over $79.95 gets an Oster Deep Fryer ($59.95 value) – this is a BASS PRO exclusive!!! ….FILET’UM & FRY’UM … make the wife happy with a gift!!! 🙂 · Any reel between $39 & $79.95 get a FREE T-Shirt UGLY STIK · Get a FREE T-Shirt with a rod or combo MITCHELL · Buy any reel over $34.99 get a Coleman Lantern (this is a really cool lantern – no batteries needed you can hand crank it to charge it!!!!! Great for camping, bad weather, fishing the bank or in a boat…it will always work BERKLEY – · Buy 2 of anything and get a rebate – so if you see a customer with Gulp Alive at $19.99 get them to buy a spool of line or a bag of bait so they get $7 back!! · NOTE this is a great promotion and with Bass Pro doing 20% off you can give our customers a BIG rebate deal …makes our baits CHEAP!!! ALSO –Bass Pro Exclusives: Swim Baits 2”, 3”, 4”, 5” and 6” pre rigged (these...
Read MoreRedfish U. in Destin-February 23, 2010
Guided Travis McKinley this morning over in Destin. Slow-rolled spoons in some pretty stained water. Fished some very productive areas and boated several quality redfish with some nice trout mixed in. Found good concentrations of redfish in 1-5 feet of water and we were even able to sightfish some fish and pitch at waking fish. The water is still pretty cool and off-color but it was a good day of catching and learning. All together,we stuck 15-18 redfish in the 22-28″ range and 3 nice trout in a 4.5 hour period. All fish taken on Johnson 1/4oz. Gold Spoons(slow-rolled.) A very busy few weeks coming up, see everyone soon. Waterproof camera died, sorry for no photos. Maybe Travis will send me a...
Read MoreA Quick Redfish U. trip-February 19, 2010
Guided Mr. David Wilson this morning. David wanted to grab some quick inshore angling techniques and checkout the 2009 Yamaha F225 Sport that I have for sale. Started out at first light and stuck some very nice speckled trout in the 2-4.5# range along with some 23-24″ redfish mixed in. Hit one more productive area and found a bunch of medium-sized(22-25″) redfish in shallow water. The water is still pretty stained and muddy but it makes no difference if you know where the fish are. Worm rattled work very well! Spent the rest of the morning cruising to let David get a feel for the F225. All fish caught on Gulp! Jerkshads in black with worm rattles. A great day considering the conditions and time...
Read MoreTough conditions but caught some fish at Redfish University-February 6, 2010
Guided Dr. Roger Orth and Dr. Wayne Adkisson this morning. Both anglers wanted to learn some shallow water redfish and trout techniques for winter and spring-time fishing. Met with very cold, strong WNW winds and very difficult water conditions due to the endless, recent rains. Concentrated on protected, shallow banks that held better water clarity. Found plenty of redfish resting in 1-3′ of water and focused on muddy blowouts to target these difficult fish. As always, a slow tap-tap retrieve and a worm rattle produced the strikes on the Gulp! 5″ Jerkshads in camo. We also stuck some quality trout in the same areas. Find the calm, less stained water and you’ll find the fish! Overall, a pretty difficult day but I believe we found the greatest concentrations of fish and most importantly, caught some very finicky wintertime redfish. All fish released except for two redfish for...
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