I made it down to the Bassathon in Anaheim by 7:00 this morning. There were not as many vendors with lures as I was hoping for, I was told over 350 on the phone but it did not seem like that many at all. It seemed like a good event and there were a lot of cool people there. I was mostly looking for swimbaits and hoping the 1-up from 3:16 would be available but never saw them. Their was a sample of the True tungsten trout swimbait and they were taking orders. I was also hoping to see the Rock Hard Castaic swimbait but never found it. I Bought 2 Lucky Craft 8" swimbaits in trout for about 50.00 a piece and was kind of suprised to see how wide the joints were when I took it out of the box. The packaging holds the joints close together but when you take them out they become a little wide for my taste. I also picked up some Mattlures shad which seem pretty cool. I had heard rumors about a Huddleston Bass and 6" swimbait but never saw them either but their were plety of Hudds hanging just inside the door. I fish swimbaits almost exclusively and was really just looking for those. I also made it to the Fred Hall show this year and did not find a single swimbait that I did not already have in fact not many swimbaits at all. I wonder If I could go to ICAST next year being that I am not a vendor. It seemed from the Tackletour site their was a lot of cool new swimbaits there. Bassathon was not what I was hoping for but I have to give kudos to those who put it on and helped make it happen. I have been getting bit consistently on swimbaits from johnscrankbait. He makes them custom for me and I think they have better action than anything I have seen so far. He utilizes 5 to 6 joints and keeps the spaces between them small and I feel they have a much more fluid action than other lures I have seen. He makes them in whatever size and colors I want and I am very impressed with them. I nailed a 6 and 4 1/2 yesterday and was out for about 2 1/2 hrs, guess I will stick to Johns lures, The Hudd and hopefully a 1-up when I can get one.
Peace Rich