ICAST 2012 fishing tackle show coverage



	Shimano Addresses Bass, Walleye, and Calico fishing with new rod introductions We come full circle as we complete our ICAST 2012 coverage which kicked off with Shimano’s Calcutta D. Though we talked about Shimano’s rods earlier in our ORCA system coverage we wanted to take a closer look at the company’s upcoming rods which were unveiled at ICAST.
	New spreader rigs and Musky baits unveiled at the Castaic booth With the explosive popularity mainly stemming from Paul Elias winning an FLW tournament with the rig in October 2011, companies have hopped on the bandwagon making rigs of their own. In the Castaic booth at ICAST 2012, new umbrella rigs were unveiled, alongside some new plugs designed for Musky fishing.
	At the top of their game, Pinnacle Fishing Pinnacle has been working hard with their prostaff, which includes popular Pro Angler John Crews, to refine and introduce new reels and rods that are designed to stand up to all the rigors of tournament fishing.
	Simms Previews New Top Quality Garments Simms is no newcomer to producing clothing for fishermen. From hats, to waders, to jackets and beyond, they have been a big name in the fly fishing world for quite some time now. Recently, they have jumped into the Bass market with fresh designs aimed at this whole new crowd of conventional anglers.
	Optimum and Ima show off their latest baits At ICAST this year, Optimum and Ima showed us their brand new offerings of hard and soft baits. From drop shotting to deep cranking, their new lineups of baitfish imitations should prove seductive to both fish and angler.
	Meet the New BB1 Speed Spool Series Reel Lew's continues to gain popularity among anglers that are rediscovering the long-standing brand for all it is, performance, value, and a time honored tradition for innovation and refinement. This year we saw the introduction of the brand new BB1 Speed Spool.
	Lock'em Down with Chain Gang lures We first learned about Chain Gang at ICAST a few years ago and since the company's introduction they have expanded their lineup to include lures that target both freshwater and saltwater species. The company's name comes from the design of their lures which use chains, often in the skirting of their lures, to generate more flash and unique actions.
	Falcon rods brings new sticks to market At the 2012 ICAST show, Falcon unveiled several new models that should get plenty of interest. With input from several well recognized pros, the rods are designed to meet demanding criteria and offer high performance at a down to earth price.
	New releases from Rapala, Terminator, Trigger X, and VMC From balsa baits, to plastics, to accessories and beyond, they have the bases covered. Releasing an impressive variety of new offerings at ICAST 2012, we go over just a few highlights of some of what to expect when the new products hit stores.
	More lifelike new baits added to the Live Target series Producing one of the most realistic looking baits on the market, Live Target lures by Koppers has become extremely popular since it burst onto the scene a few years ago. Offering a broad range of both hard and soft baits, their products not only look amazing but flat out catch fish too.
	New Models, New Colors, New Energy from Spro For once at the Spro Booth, Bill Siemantel had nothing in his secret briefcase to share with us, so we visited with the other pros to see what was new with this lure manufacturer. Mike McClelland, Russ Lane, and John Crews are on hand to show us the new additions to their signature series baits.
	ABT Makes it Easy to Fish Umbrella Rigs, From Rigs to Rods Allen Borden, former Strike King Lure Designer and creator of the King Shad has been busy adding new hard and soft bodied baits to his own company's lineup. ABT Lures has a vision to create lures that not only catch fish but are made available to anglers at very reasonable prices.
	What the... ?!? Sunline Goes Finesse! There are only a handful of truly premium line brands out there today, but few can match the pro-staff roster of Sunline. Aaron Martens, Dean Rojas, Mike McClelland, Brent Ehrler, Takahiro Omori, are but a few of the names of which we speak.
	Damiki Introduces A Wide Spectrum of New Lures Since the last ICAST show, Damiki has been hard at work developing a plethora of new products. Covering techniques for power and finesse fishing, these new additions appear to deliver excellent quality and detail. Professional angler Bryan Thrift led us through the various features of each item and what makes them special.
	Accurate and Halco exhibit some impressive products The new SR-6 model joins the family of rock solid Twinspin Twin drag spinning reels. With it's smaller size this reel will be right at home fishing for freshwater species like Bass and Steelhead, or inshore saltwater fish like Snook and Stripers.
	Hot new plastics and colors from Yamamoto and Kinami Baits As one of the most well known bait manufacturers of all time, Gary Yamamoto's Yamamoto Bait company is world renowned for producing products of superior quality. While their Senko is undoubtedly one of the hottest baits ever, the Yamamoto lineup includes other hot offerings...
	John Crews' New Array of Missile Baits Earlier this year, Pro Angler John Crews launched a new venture appropriately named, Missile Baits and following a win by fellow BASS Elite series pro, and Missile Baits pro-staff, Ish Monroe, anglers are now loading up on Crews' new arsenal of baits. We caught up with Crews at ICAST 2012 to check out the entire line.
	Gamakatsu's Swivel Shot and 2X EWG Treble Look Sharp Good things come to those who wait, and for fans of Gamakatsu's products, that means a full release on a product that was promised to the market last year. We caught up with John Crews during ICAST 2012 to see what was new with Gamakatsu.
	River2Sea's Prostaff Roll out Signature Baits Including the Bumbershoot Umbrella Rig River2Sea had a large showing this ICAST with introductions of new products in just about every popular bait category from wirebaits to swimbaits. The company has leveraged the expertise of their growing prostaff and created a new line of products that feature both innovative design and quality craftsmanship...
	St. Croix Completes the Sweep With Best Saltwater Rod As mentioned in our other article centered around their Legend Xtreme series, it was a double win in for St. Croix this year at ICAST taking home Best of Show honors in both the freshwater and saltwater rod categories. Their booth was really abuzz with the excitement and here now is what else was up with St. Croix at the show.
	Airrus Rods showcases advanced rod technology Airrus rods is a company that never seems to stop trying to push rod technology and design even further. Not only do their advancements set them apart, but the futuristic look of many of their rods helps make them unique as well.
	Creature Fever at ICAST 2012 with Big Bite Baits! On the Creature Fever front, ICAST 2012 was full of manufacturers offering their take on bass fishing's most popular bait type - soft plastics. Big Bite Bait Company is growing fast in popularity amongst recreational and professional bass fishermen alike. We stopped by to take a look at what's new in their catalog for 2013.
	Owner's New Stinger Made of ZoWire Last year at ICAST, Owner returned to traditional offerings showing us what was new in their terminal tackle lines. This year it was much of the same with an extensions and enhancements of sorts of tried and true lines.
	Abu Garcia Updates Their Rod Lineup and Gets Volatile To accompany the revamp of their entire Revo line of reels, Abu Garcia as made some adjustments to their rod lineup as well for 2013 with a revamp of the popular Vendetta rods, a new inshore series called Volatile, and some extensions to two other lineups.
	Phenix shows off new rod lines including the much anticipated M1 series With their Recon series rods being unveiled at ICAST 2011, Phenix seeks to raise the bar by bringing out new rod lines to the ICAST 2012 show, including the exciting M1 series.
	From Infinity to Pro-X, New Bass Rods from Lamiglas Lamiglas has been relatively quiet over the last year or two in the bass side of things concentrating instead on their core business of salmon and steelhead rods. 2013 marks the year Lamiglas takes another look at the market of bass rods with one entirely new lineup and another they've revamped.
	Jackall Debuts New Baits Addressing the Entire Water Column Whether anglers enjoy drawing viscous topwater strikes or enticing lunkers from down deep with umbrella rigs Jackall had the answer this year.
	Elite Angler Chris Zaldain Shows Us How to Bulk Up with Seaguar As we were walking the aisles of ICAST 2012 enroute to our next appointment, one of BASS's newest Elite Anglers, Chris Zaldain waved us down to check out what was happening over at Seaguar.
	Cover up with the Rod Jacket and Rig Jacket by Angler Innovations While there are several choices on the market for rod and reel protection, Angler Innovations is offering new solutions that they feel really stand out from the rest. At ICAST 2012, they unveiled their new Brandon Palaniuk signature series Rod Jacket rod/reel protectors, as well as their new Rig Jackets for protecting your umbrella rigs while not in use.
	Skeet and Tak Highlight Lucky Craft's New Hardbaits If there's a short list of manufacturers that comes to mind when the TT Staff talks about rip baits, Lucky Craft is definitely in the top two or three. Imagine our excitement then, when we learned Lucky Craft was introducing a new series of stick baits.
	The Wait is Over.. EVERGREEN!! For the last several years, Evergreen International has done their best to announce a presence and tease us with availability here in the States. ICAST 2012 marks the date all the teasing comes to an end.
	One Order of Bento is All You Need to Catch Lunkers The team at Lunkerhunt have been hard at work designing everything from premium fishing lures to complete systems to provide anglers of all levels with the right tackle and the knowledge to employ effective fish catching techniques. Their work paid off in a big way this ICAST with a “Best of Show” Award in the soft bait category for their minnow Bento Baits.
	Ready for battle at any depth with Lock and Load lures With a patented crankbait design featuring an interchangeable lip, these baits allow you to fish the entire water column effectively with just one single bait.
	The Wright & McGill Sabalos fly reel takes ICAST 2012 “Best of Show” for fly reels At this year's 2012 ICAST show in Orlando, Wright & McGill's new Sabalos saltwater fly reel took home top honors in the fly reel category. With input from noted saltwater angler Blair Wiggins, the Sabalos reels promise to be an impressive yet affordable package.
	A New Vision for Megabass 2012 marks the year Megabass Japan has taken on a new perspective, and this vision involves a more prominent presence here in North America. Their intent? More pervasive product distribution, better information regarding the design, intended application, and availability of product, and a subset of product that is actually tailored for the US market.
	St. Croix Mixes Tech to Redesign the Legend Xtreme Series, and Wins! This year it was all about the complete redesign of the Legend Xtreme rods and it paid off with a win in the freshwater rod category. St. Croix dominated rods this year with a second win in the saltwater category for their Legend Inshore as well.
	Quantum Takes EXO to the next Level and the company's Other Lines Follow Last year Quantum's EXO reels were the talk of the show and this year the company showed no signs of slowing down, instead they built off that momentum by rounding out the line and also completely redesigning the Energy PT, Catalyst PT, and Accurist PT casting reels to enhance both performance and value.
	ICAST 2012 "Best of Show" Award Winners Announced Every year day two at ICAST starts off with everyone eagerly anticipating which manufacturers and products took home top honors from the "New Product Showcase." Over 700 tackle products were entered this year and when the dust settled the Hobie Mirage pro Angler 12 was voted by media and buyers as the best product in both the boat category and the overall "Best of Show."
	More Choices with the Aggressively Priced Daiwa Lexa Series Daiwa rounded out their reel offerings this ICAST with the introduction of the new Lexa Series reels which are designed to target everything from bass to knocking down trophy Muskie. These reels boast a low profile design coupled with high capacity, and for the first time Daiwa has a low profile reel that can go head to head against the Shimano Curado 300.
	Okuma’s RTX Spinning Reels Deliver Carbon Fiber Construction for Less than $100 dollars! The RTX looks like a compelling offering and features a lot of what we liked about the Helios, but what really makes this reel so exciting is the aggressive price point. The RTX delivers carbon fiber design and performance for only $99.99 dollars!
	Must Go Faster! Daiwa Cranks Up the Quickest Steez Yet The Daiwa Steez is the exotic sports car of fishing reels, sleek, lightweight, refined, and undeniably sexy. This premium performer just got faster and this ICAST Daiwa unveiled their quickest reel to date, meet the new Steez EX-XS.
	Shimano Rolls Out a Trio of Redesigned Spinning Reels The official unveiling of the Calcutta was definitely the focus for Shimano this year but it was also a significant year for mainstream spinning for the company with the update of three reels, all under the $149.99 dollar price point. The highest end of these is the Saros which we covered prior to the show.
	Shimano Introduces a New Fishing System and this time it is all about Topwater In the last few years Shimano has been releasing more than just reels and rods and has been rolling out complete “systems” which incorporate all the tackle necessary to catch fish in varying applications. New this year in the company’s “Technical Fishing Systems” is the ORCA which is designed to catch big saltwater fish that hunt on the surface.
	G.Loomis Unveils New GLX Bass Rods - Crankbait and Flipping Sticks to Launch First GLX is the graphite material that really put G.Loomis on the map when it came to premium blanks and later utilized in a highly popular rod series that has been selling for nearly 20 years. This ICAST the company is introducing an update to the series and unveiled a completely new series utilizing not only the material but a new split grip and reel seat design.
	TT Exclusive: The First Look Inside the Shimano Calcutta D As Shimano started to build their booth up in Florida we got a call from Reel Product Manager, Kenichi Iida, who let us know that one of the reels was being sent overnight to our lab for a closer look in advance of the official debut in just days. Suffice to say we were counting the hours waiting for the UPS delivery!