ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 4, 1996 TAG: 9603060020
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRUCE STANTON STAFF WRITER
COMPANIES ARE SPENDING big money on research and development to net bigger sales from trout fishermen.
Whoever said trout fishing wasn't brain surgery was right. Whoever said it wasn't nuclear physics, well, they'd better think again.
What used to be simply baiting a hook and throwing it out to catch a fish has turned into large companies spending thousands of dollars on research and development to improve their wares.
Take Orvis, for instance. The popular fly-fishing outfitter recently worked with the manufacturers of the Trident submarine on a new line of fly-fishing rods.
The appropriately named Trident line will come in four sizes and carry a price tag of about $500 apiece. So, what does all this technology provide?
``It gives you better control of the line and better distance,'' said Robert Bryant, manager of the Orvis store in downtown Roanoke.
For the serious fly fisherman, the Trident might be worth a look. And if you want a test, free trials are available, Bryant said.
Orvis isn't the only company that went underwater to improve its product for trout anglers. Berkley has a large indoor pool where fisheries biologist Dr. Keith Jones studies the eating habits of all species of trout. In turn, Jones and other biologists create new types of Power Baits.
This year, researchers produced two new lines of Power Bait - Power Chow and Power Nibbles. Extensive testing also produced a new flavor that won't be new at all to the trout: ``original hatchery.''
The flavor is reeling them in, too.
``Now that stuff's selling,'' said Charlie Cline, owner of Cline's Bait and Tackle near Hollins. ``Once fishermen see it, they buy it.''
And what exactly does ``original hatchery'' resemble?
``It looks like dog food,'' said Derrick Hines of the All Huntin-N-Fishin Store in Salem.
While the Power Bait craze has hooked many fishermen's wallets, there is extensive research done to improve the baits, said Judy Sitzmann, the media relations director for Berkley. Sitzmann said Dr. Jones will pick out a certain trout in the pool and record everything it ingests - the color, size and shape of the foods it is being offered. When enough fish go crazy over a bait, the finished product is near.
``We're not picking what the fish wants,'' Sitzmann said. ``The fish picks what it wants.''
While the Power Chow can be slipped on a typical trout hook, the Power Nibbles are meant to be used with a salmon egg hook, Cline said.
``I think it's a better size because fishermen don't waste as much bait, and you catch fish better,'' he said.
Until this year, Berkley pretty much had the dough-bait market to itself. Not anymore. Uncle Josh, famous for its pork fishing products, has joined the parade with two lines of baits - Natura and Natural Bait Station.
The Natura line is similar to the Power Bait paste, said Roanoke's Richard Saunders, the area distributor for Uncle Josh. It is available in a few area stores, including The Fishing Hole, and comes in six flavors - chartreuse and garlic, corn, shrimp, salmon, vanilla and salty crayfish.
``This bait is scented, and the scent bleeds out into the water and acts as chum,'' Saunders said. ``The fish follow the smell and come to the bait. It has glitter in it, too. It's so new, it's not even in our catalog.''
Unlike the aforementioned baits, little research had to go into the Natural Bait Station line. These baits once were living creatures, and they have been preserved in a special solution to help anglers catch fish. The line includes waxworms, mealworms, grass shrimp and even maggots.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart: Getting a line on trout.by CNB