(As posted on Wired2Fish.com) Tournament success is often the quickest way for a new bait or pattern to come to the top of the angling mediaverse. Anybody buy one of those $50 Chatterbaits after the 2006 Classic or a $75 Alabama Rig after Elias smashed the field at Guntersville in 2011?
It makes sense. I get it. In a sport where ounces separate the winners from losers, anglers are constantly looking for an edge and when you see someone shock the field like Elias did that famed October, it’s hard to resist the urge to go out and whip out the plastic.
As compelling as those “rags to riches” bait stories are, they are actually pretty few and far between. Whether due to lack of media attention, or marketing ineptitude by a manufacturer; there are a host of proven, tournament winning techniques that just haven’t resonated as well with the angling “in” crowd.
Red Hot North Carolina Pro Hank Cherry has been a working example of this dynamic for the past year and a half. His finesse swimbait technique has netted him a pair of primetime wins and well over $100,000 since the beginning of 2012, but you probably haven’t even heard of it.
That’s likely due to a combination of lazy tournament coverage and Cherry’s workmanlike attitude toward the kind of success many anglers only dream of.
