Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 28, 1995 TAG: 9508280129
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN and BRUCE STANTON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Bomber Fat Free Shad is the 1996 season's entry in the must-have category. It will catch both - fish and fishermen. The biggest problem, initially, will be finding one at your favorite tackle shop.
The Fat Free Shad helped Mark Davis land angling's biggest prize, the 1995 BASS Masters Classic.
Even before Davis walked off the weigh-in platform in Greensboro, N.C., with his $50,000 winner's check, fishermen were asking, ``Where can I get one of the lures?''
``Within 40 to 60 days, they should be available most everywhere,'' said Jim Gowing, the lure designer for PRADCO, an Arkansas company that makes Bomber, Rebel, Cotton Cordell and a half-dozen other brand-name lures. ``They will be spread out everywhere - Wal-Mart, Bass Pro Shops - everybody who sells fishing lures. We are geared up to make sure that everybody who wants one will get one. We're increasing our capacity to produce.''
The day after the Classic, PRADCO was handling a huge order for Bass Pro Shops.
Davis was one of several pros who got the Fat Free Shad in time to fish the early August Classic on High Rock Lake. Kevin VanDam, who finished sixth, also had the lure, and appeared destined to win with it, but faded the last day of competition when the water conditions changed.
Before the final weigh-in, he was tight-mouthed about what he was using to catch his fish.
``It makes a different sound; it has a different action,'' was all he would tell a reporter. ``If I didn't have this lure, I wouldn't be catching what I'm catching.''
What lure?
VanDam told the inquisitive to wait until the final weigh-in and he would reveal his secret.
``It is a new deep-diving crank bait that quite a few of us helped design who are on the PRADCO Team,'' he said, keeping his promise. ``It is designed with aerodynamics so you can cast it a long ways. It has a tight wiggle, and it has a loud rattle, and it dives just extremely deep - real fast.''
As VanDam spoke in the shadows of the Greensboro Coliseum, Davis, the first angler to win B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year and the Classic in the same season, was in the spotlight, telling the crowd of 20,000, ``This is the lure that really did it for me.''
He held up a Fat Free Shad in citrus-shad color (chartreuse, lime scales, blue back and orange throat). He said his wife, Tilly, had kissed it the night before and he had worn the lipstick off casting it.
For PRADCO, it was a script made in Hollywood.
``The thing that really seemed to top it all off, it was the first time a guy had won Angler of the Year and the Classic, and he did it on a brand-new bait that had never been used in a tournament before,'' Gowing said. ``At the Classic, the pros saw it in its finished form for the first time.''
When Davis viewed it, he said he believed it was the lure that would win the Classic. During the tournament, he searched for brush piles that held suspended bass, and when he found them he worked them with the Fat Free Shad.
``The trick, once you hit the brush, was to wind your bait real fast, and then kill it,'' he said. ``When you would burn it, then stop it - on the flutter and fall - that's when the fish would bang it.''
Although it is thinner than Bomber's popular Fat A lure, the 3-inch Fat Free Shad still is a big lure in an era when many baits have the word ``Teeny'' in their name.
``I've always believed a big bait is more attractive than a little bait,'' said Bill Dance, a TV fishing show host who worked closely with Gowing in the design of the Fat Free Shad.
``Big baits are more visible, and there's less margin of error,'' he said. ``For example, I can see a basketball going through the air better than a golf ball, and I can catch a basketball better.''
While a number of pros pooled their ideas on the new lure, Gowing and Dance were the kingpins in its development.
``We would discuss it, and he would fish it,'' Gowing said. ``Bill said, `Boy, if you could make it look just like a real shad, we'd have something that no one else would have.'''
``I think it has all of the characteristics that make a good crankbait,'' said Dance, who gave the lure its name. ``It is a crankbait that will vertically dive on the retrieve. It goes straight down. There's less resistance with the thinner sides, so it goes down quicker.
``Seventy-five percent of the bass I catch, I catch on a stop-and-go retrieve. It backs up real good. The bait does not drift on a long cast. It's amazing how well it will track through heavy cover. If it comes to a log, it will roll and deflect off it.''
The thinner sides creates a tighter wiggle, Dance said.
``A shad doesn't wobble when it swims. It swims in a tighter pattern.''
Dance praised the lure's realistic eyes, its threadfin- and gizzard-shad colors and its sharp Excalibur hooks.
``That bait is stronger than 100 acres of garlic,'' he said. ``I'm not trying to make this sound like a Bill Dance fishing commercial, but it's a fine crankbait.''
by CNB