Huge congrats to Randy Tharp for his 2012 FLW Tour Open Victory on Lake Okeechobee.  Nobody has worked harder in preparation for this event and no one is more in tune with mat punching on Okeechobee than Randy.   Almost 102 pounds of fish in 4 days.  Randy broke the 100 pound barrier for the second year in a row.   Randy’s work ethic in pre-practice and in just arranging his life and lifestyle to compete at the highest level and be the best angler he can be are second to none.    Randy’s wife Sarah, is just awesome and she is an integral part of Randy’s game.  They are a team, and they’ve been working at this together for years,  things are lining up and it couldn’t happen to better people.   Randy’s career is already stellar, and he’s just getting started.  The sky (and the fact that Randy is forced by mother nature to sleep, otherwise, he’d be fishing 24 X 7)  is the limit for the Tharp’s.   Way to go Randy and Sarah!    Randall dedicated his win to Jimmy and the McMillan family, and we included some material to honor the life and legacy of Jimmy McMillan.   He was definitely proud of his boys this past week.

With over 100 pounds for the second consecutive year, Randall Tharp wins on Lake Okeechobee.

The House of the Rising Son: Okeechobee. Line thru, ball knobber boot tails, braided line and a trap hook rigging that brought me back to my days on San Vicente in the early 2000s. The 3:16 Rising Son, excellence is buoyancy and a thing I call, Rate of Stall---which are key to the grass fishing conversation--well, shallow grass anyway. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm still a Vortex head, and Florida has other Vortexes that do damage besides hurricanes and tropical storms!!!

Alright, tournament time again, FLW Tour Open, Lake Okeechobee.   I haven’t said a whole lot since the Everstart.  Trying to manage information…This FLW Tour Open is my one Tour Event for 2012, and I dang sure don’t need to be helping out the list of guys who already are household names I’m fishing against!   So let me walk you thru my Everstart a little.  Day 1, I planned on throwing the bigbaits all day.  However, we had an unforecasted 15-20 MPH Wind from the NNE, that wrecked my major areas.  The wind not only seriously mucked up the water color, it was causing my bait to run funky.  Side wind and braided line swimbait fishing is no bueno.  Your bait tends to drag with the big bow in your line and there was no getting away from it.   I only had 2 fish for Day 1 and wanted to jump off the Kissimmee Bridge and just die.  My friend Roger Ray showed up at the house out of nowhere that evening.  He was down to fun fish, and it was a blessing to have a friend around and just snap me out of complete misery.  My only comfort was reading how many other guys sucked on Day 1, phew.   I mean, I drove straight home (was in first flight) fueled up the boat, and went to bed at 6:30.  Just so disgusted and angry, didn’t even check the standings until later that night.   Thanking Rodger once again for his use of time and timing.   So Day 2, I started in an area I’d seen a couple big ones hanging around beds, but not locked on, and wouldn’t eat.  Much better, calmer weather and conditions made things a little more normal and fishable to say the least.    I stopped short, set up, and made long casts to where I’d seen her and got a big bite in the first 2 minutes of fishing.  Solid 6+ pounder in the boat.  Hooray.   We moved a little further and fished on, and I made another long cast to another area a big one had been hanging around and BLOOSH, another solid 5+ pounder in the boat.  Hell yeah.  One hour in, I was back in the money and had plenty of time to fish.   I kept chunking the bigbaits the rest of the day, got another one 4+ and one about 2.5 just committing to the bigbaits all day.    Finished 21st place, and only weighed 6 fish for the entire tournament.  24 pounds in 6 fish.   Was 6 pounds from the Top 10 cut.  Kicking myself for being so one dimensional, because I could have easily made up 6 pounds in 4 fish if I knew what I know today.

There is a huge difference between the Gambler BB Cricket and the Beaver. The BB Cricket is probably 30% smaller which means it punches that much better, and the Beaver already rocks the house in the flipping and punching department. It's similar to the difference between the 6" and 8" Huddleston baits, big difference, but in small baits, the difference isn't so noticeable, unless you really stop and look and fish. The BB Cricket can be fished where few baits will punch thru, just due to simple design and super small profile.

So, to the Tour Event.  I have to credit my good friend and fellow angler, Casey Martin for helping me out a ton during off limits.  We did a bunch of fun fishing and filming on some other lakes around, and Casey showed me the finer things to grass flipping and punching. I needed to see how the latest and greatest stuff was being done.  Casey whacked ‘em pretty good and showed me the advanced things about picking casts, where to hit, and how to choose and rig baits and the adjustments he made during a day.  Casey can compete with anyone out there.  Don’t let the fact he is fishing the Tour (and won 2 Tour Events and the AOY in 2011 as a Co-Angler) as a CoAngler fool you.  He fishes the Everstarts as a Pro, and is solid as a rock.

Thanking Casey for helping me with my grass flipping and punching. Casey has been living with Derek Remitz and Craig Dowling most of the last few years on Lake Guntersville, and has honed his grass fishing on the mighty G'Ville. I found myself for the first time in a long time, having to adjust the basic mechanics of what I was doing. Casey is so efficient when he flips, he mathematically beats most guys. More pitches, more clean punches, less time changing over hands (he uses a left handed reel) and keeps the rod in his right hand 100% of the time, and has mad skills in picking out the right stuff to hit. In exchange, I've been lecturing Casey on perfect proportions, Vitruvian Man, and fractal geometry. Poor Casey!!!

The things Casey helped tune me into, combined with some old skills I used to use on Lake Havasu back in the day before it was a smallmouth fishery have come back to me.  I’m fishing a healthy combination of flipping and pitching and punching and swimbait fishing tomorrow.  We have bad wind and weather, however, I’ve found an area I believe, if I can get to it (meaning if the wind isn’t so bad we cannot run to it) I can get in, and be safe from the wind.   So, one major swimbait area, and a lot of places I’m flipping and pitching and punching.   I’ve gotten into a pattern to narrow down the endless amounts of grass and overwhelming nature of Okeechobee, with regards to flipping and pitching, and can sorta bounce around and just fish the moment with that deal and feel good about catching some fish, and some of them can be good ones.   I needed a good way to fill up a limit because the Everstart showed me that even on a good day, I won’t get 5 in the boat, and I cannot afford to make any mistakes like that at the Tour Level.  These boys are incredible anglers and have whipped me badly before, and I cannot beat myself by being one dimensioned out there, especially since we have 15-20 MPH NNE  (just like on Day 1 of the Everstart where I struggled with the bigbaits so badly) forecast for tomorrow.   I need 5 and tomorrow is my long day, so I gotta use that time wisely.

The mighty Medlock Jig, double weed guard, 1 ounce and a the biggest baddest hook you ever seen on a jig. Brandon won the Okeechobee Everstarts the last 2 years in a row on this jig. I think it's safe to assume they are eating it.

I am boat 147 tomorrow.  Due in at 5 pm!  Long day, but the weather is going to be brutal windy and rough, but heck, I feel a whole lot better about catching a limit and maybe getting 1-2 big bites, no matter what happens with the weather or wind tomorrow.   Please know I am so overwhelmed and behind on so many things that I’m paralyzed at times.   I spend my daylight hours fishing, and evening hours getting the footage off the cameras and haven’t even hardly gotten to the editing.  The editing is the major heavy lifting, and I’ll be honest, I just haven’t had the focused time to spend on it all, yet.   I spent the majority of off limits fishing, filming, working on the boat, doing normal stuff, and some days just resting.    I have been filming A LOT since I’ve been down here. I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to be doing with the all footage.    Thinking of working on another DVD project, thinking of just some mid-length YouTube series, and definitely have commitments to various business partners I’m obliged to fulfill, so therein lies my challenge.  So, when I don’t know what to do, the best decision is no decision, meaning, hang loose and the right paths will eventually reveal themselves.   Time’s a Revelator.    So bare with me, have a lot to share and show, bigbait fishing and grass flipping and punching stuff.  First things last, I’ve got to focus, keep it simple, make good decisions, and make the most of this event.

Okeechobee will not be won on the Alabama Rig, not even the Trip Jig, the modified castable rig, with 2 blades, a skirt, and 3 wires. I enjoyed 'field testing' multi-rigs for grass applications, and my work is not yet done, but it wouldn't be right to not mention that the Alabama Rig WILL NOT WIN on Okeechobee. More to come on the Trip Jig and various weedless setups I've been using (vs. exposed jig head and Hammers). Underwater photography and video is so filthy awful sickening.

Click the above image to be routed to Tackle Warehouse, buy a copy of Southern Trout Eaters (and whatever else you might need), check out, and you'll be entered to win one of two 3 Dot Triple Trouts. Raffle Ends 2-29-12.

Thanking Mr. Whitmer for his contribution to our film in both person and in bait, and thanking him again for allowing us the opportunity to give away a couple of beautiful baits that anyone would be stoked to have.   The Triple Trout is a hard bait.  Hard Baits require much more scrutiny than do soft baits.  The Triple Trout catches fish in all latitudes and longitudes trout or no trout, and is a bigbait you need to be fluent in.   We featured the Triple Trout in the Southern Trout Eaters DVD of course, and show how we fish it in ‘moving bait’ conditions and in straight up Southern heat.   S-Swimmers are part of the tool kit, and the Triple Trout is right next to the set of wrenches.

CLICK HERE to view the page to buy your copy of our  Southern Trout Eaters DVD, and see the banner at the top of the page that outlines the raffle from Tackle Warehouse.   Bottom line is, buy a copy of Southern Trout Eaters in February and you’ll be entered into the drawing to win one.

Owner ST-36 Stinger Hooks and Hyper Wire Split Rings added to the raffled baits for your fish hooking and landing pleasure.

Boot&Vortex Tails, weedless and not, braided line and 5 good bites a day, is that too much to ask for?

This is my 4th year on Okeechobee.  The lake is fishing WAY differently than in years past.  The lake is choked out.  The vegetation so thick in most areas, you simply cannot get to a lot of areas that we used to fish.  The fish are more main lake/outside edge of the grass line, where they’ve never really been when I’ve bee here.   What that means is new locations, and new ways to catch them.  You can actually fish hanging trebles and non-weedless baits, but with the water falling, weedless is better than not most times.  Still, new lake to me, fishing pretty old school I imagine, lots of flipping and punching going on, and just light pitching.   But unless you know where the big ones are, that is a brutal way to go about Okeechobee, and the zillions of miles of shoreline grass, mats, and edges.

Guys are going to smash them. I mean, 25-30 pound sacks.  Flipping and punching.  I’m not doing either. I’m going with the swimmers.  I have a small-medium-large approach, and let me be clear, I’m fishing the Everstart and FLW Tour Event, so this is the first of two events I’ll be fishing, so I’ve got reason to not fully disclose everything, until after the Tour Event (Feb 12th).  I’ve had some big days on the grass swimmers.  I’m fishing new baits, new water, new techniques and taking my bigbait approach to the grass, and some days, it works.  However, the last 2 days of practice have sucked.  I haven’t been catching them quite like I want to be at all.  They aren’t eating the bigbaits right now for some reason.  They sorta bump it and I’m talking 5-7 bites on a GOOD day, more like 1-2 bites some days.    This isn’t the Okeechobee where you catch 20-40 fish no problem.   I could come in with 1 or 2 fish tomorrow, but I’ve made up my mind to fish my game, fish my strengths and sorta let this be a test run for the Tour Open.

Braided line, bigbaits, and 8 foot rods can be killer.  Okeechobee can give and Okeechobee can take.  This place flip flops from whipping my butt and stoking me out.  Tomorrow, I’m boat 12, which wasn’t what I wanted, but whatever, first flight, early weigh in, gotta go for it.  I know I’m around some quality fish, and God willing, I get 5 bites in the boat.    Have a long day on Friday, and our weather has been pretty much gorgeous, but again, the lake is different.  In year’s past, I’d be putting 75-100 fish in the boat per day with 80 degree air temps.  It’s just not that way, despite the good weather.   The flippers and punchers are going to get ‘em, but only a handful are going to get the big ones.  Too many guys are struggling and scratching.  I’m way better at focusing on 5 bites with a swimmer in my hand than punching a Beaver with the rest of the world.  You want to talk about overwhelming, try tackling Okeechobee with a flipping rod.    So thick and choked this year too.

Wish me luck, I’m going to need it.   Gonna take all my powers and skills to get 5 fish in the boat tomorrow. I’m not fishing for 2 pounders and fishing the safe and conservative route. I’ve never had fish eating the baits I’m throwing, leading up to a tournament and I gotta go for it.  This could be a big disaster for this Everstart, but even so, I’m considering this a sort of dress rehearsal for the Tour Event.   I just don’t feel like compromising and playing it conservative.  I’m tired of fishing every game but my own.  I’ve had as many as 12-15 bites and 25 pounds easy on my better days.   The weather has been warming things up and I expect boys to catch ‘em, just not everyone is going to have 20+ pounds. I guess it will take 12 pounds per day to get a check. I think I can get 12 pounds in 2-3 of the right bites per day.   No bed fish going, but that too might change come Tour time.    Anywho, gonna try and have some fun, fish my strengths and my game, and if Day 1 doesn’t pan out, even more reason on Day 2 to go back and do it all over because I’m not gonna get 30 pounds fishing texas rigged trick worms, which is a good bait right now!

Mickey sent me a couple prototypes of his new Mission Fish, the v2.0 Mission Fish.  This is just a prototype, and I haven’t had near the time or experience with the bait to come up with any final conclusions.  Mickey let me know he’s definitely still working on the bait, and this is just a prototype, but you can see where this bait is going.   Here is what I can tell you about the new Mission Fish:

• FATTER
• Rounder
• Bulkier
• Better swimming version (the Rising Son Tail gives the bait added swim, thump, rock & roll of the head and body, and just livens up the overall swim).   This version still fishes Texas Rig style, can be pitched, flipped, snatched, and dropped, but the Rising Son tail makes you want to keep it moving.
• More Weedless:  Improved split belly design, step-up reinforced rubber where the hook goes thru the bait, making the bait a bit more durable and fishable in the thick stuff.
• Better Hook-ups:  Okay, stop what you are doing, and invest $6.50 in a pack of 8/0 Owner Beast Hooks, and retrofit you old Mission Fishes (6-7-8″ Mission Fish for the 8/0 Beast Hook) and remove the CPS (Centering Pin Spring)–very easy to do.  I believe this hook, with the hook point way above the line tie, in a better jig hook setup and the overall size, bite, gap and reach back of the 8/0 Beast is going to significant improve hook-up ratios.  Its so far a better hook and system than the G Folks and their Mag Gap 5/0 bent out at 45 degrees.   Please help me test this out, but I believe this 8/0 Beast Hook will make a huge impact on old and new Mission Fishes.   It’s like a perfect worm hook setup for a big magnum bigbait.  Check out the 10/0 Beast for your old 9″ Mission Fishes!    Save your CPS.  Don’t throw them away or cut them off.   They are good for other rigs and rigging.

I’m in tournament practice and preparation mode on Okeechobee at the moment, so I don’t want to say too much about too much anyway. I just wanted to share the prototype, and provide a view of what the next generation of Mission Fish will look like and where Mickey is headed with it.  I have a lot of fishing yet to be done with the Mission Fish, both new and old versions, but believe me the Owner Beast Hook + PowerPro will be part of both approaches.   I’m not fishing for a world record or heavy teen fish. I’m looking for 4-7 pounders and I’m looking at the the tournament potential of the Mission Fish.   It’s just a really unique bait in that it swims, flips and pitches, and can be texas rigged outside and sorta snatched and ripped and just has a lot of versatility, sort of like a swim jig does.  A bigbait version of the swimjig.

This story is to be continued. Way too much yet to fish and explore with this bait before we say anything further.  No clue what Mickey has in store for the general release of this new version.   We might still be months away before he’s ready for a release. I’m going to keep fishing and taking notes and trying to progress and document what I do.   Stay tuned.

Fatter, Rounder, Bulkier and a better swimmer a la Rising Son Tail. Matched with the 8/0 Owner Beast Hook, this is going to get bit and hook the fish. Approach with 65# braid, and stout moderate fast medium action swimbait rods and whatever reel you've got. Weighs approx. 2 ounces. Texas, Flip, Drop, Snatch, or just grind it along.

If I wanted to tell you that a Rate of Fall 5  (ROF 5) Huddleston Deluxe Trout is sometimes better than a ROF 12 or ROF 16 Huddleston Deluxe Trout, I would explain it two ways.  One has to do with the Rate of Fall and how slow sinking the ROF 5 is, compared to the other two.   The other measurement I’d like to provide you is it’s Rate of Stall score, meaning something I can ‘score’ the bait on and speak to the East and West travel of the bait (not just the North and South, as in Rate of Fall).   You can creep the ROF 5 along, and it still maintains its parallel to the surface posture, but moves toward you much much slower than doing the same thing with the ROF 16.  The ROF 16 wants to sink out and forces you to reel faster to get the bait planing toward you, which speeds up how fast it comes at you, the subtle difference between the time a ROF 16 vs a ROF 5 in terms of how slow you can reel each bait and fish it properly is a based in an understanding of Rate of Stall, at least, that’s what I’m calling it for now!  When fish are on points or offshore it requires a slower and more thorough presentation, and at times, the ROF 5 8″ Huddleston is the better choice (amongst the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe family of trout baits)  for 2 reasons:  Rate of Fall (ROF) and Rate of Stall (ROS).  ROS is not just a Huddleston thing, in fact, understanding ROS within the swim of the Huddleston conversation is an ‘advanced’ conversation.   Floating baits best help visualize Rate of Stall, a la the Nezumaa Rat, as you’ll see in the video clip.

The above video clip is an attempt to present the idea of Rate of Stall, and is the beginning to what will be a multiple part online discussion. We touched on Rate of Stall in Southern Trout Eaters, and I talked about how I learned how to alter my MS Slammer retrieve from a straight wind, to a more walk the dog, start and stop–more stalled retrieve based on what I’d learned from fishing the Nezumaa Rat.  I was able to keep my MS Slammer around the shade lines and steep faces of the Ozark Lakes, and that was where the fish were, and what it took to draw the strikes.      I’ve asked Rob McComas (who is featured in Southern Trout Eaters) who is a MS Slammer specialist and Matt Allen from Tacticalbassin.com to provide some feedback and prepare a video response to Rate of Stall.  I watched a video clip of Matt talking about the Lunker Punker and talking about fishing it over points, and I knew he would understand Rate of Stall and what I’m proposing here, so I reached out to get Matt’s perspective on the theme of Rate of Stall.  I’m hoping having an online discussion where multiple people can provide video responses can be done in an orderly and effective fashion and provides a refreshed medium to have online fishing discussions.    So, here is my part, just proposing Rate of Stall as a form of measurement and a rating or scaling system we might consider in talking about our baits.  The “East and West” if you consider Rate of Fall to be “North and South”.   I’m on Okeechobee right now, testing out Rate of Stall as it relates to fishing softbaits like the 3:16 Bluegill and neutrally buoyant and floating hardbaits like the 22nd Century Bluegill, rat baits, and MS Slammers in the grass, keyword:  “grass”.  I have other additions to Rate of Stall already underway, and I’m anxious to hear what Matt and Rob have to say about it, and we go from there.  Check back here, for updates and the various responses.  I have my fingers crossed, this online discussion format, with varying responses being stacked chronologically and playing off each other, will fly.   We shall see.  Please comment below, if you have some input on Rate of Stall.

The Nezumaa Rat helped me grasp something I knew, but couldn't fully explain. Talking to Rob McComas, hearing what Matt Allen said about the Lunker Punker in one of his TacticalBassin.com videos, my experience with ROF 5 vs ROF 12 or 16, and grass fishing has lead me to: Rate of Stall. . Oh the grass fishing, probably nowhere more important is Rate of Stall and understanding it in bait selection, line (braid and its neutral buoyancy adds Rate of Stall for example), the vortex of the tail (boot vs. wedge vs. modified wedge), or the buoyancy (floating vs. slow sink vs. neutral) properties of various hard and softbaits. But Rate of Stall, I argue is a missing dimension in talking about the swim of most of the baits we fish. You've got to be able to talk about the East and West and track a bait as it swims or can be stalled, toward the boat (not just the sink rate, or North and South, as in Rate of Fall). The Net Net Net of this conversation is picking the right baits for the right situations and also applying the right retrieves, and/or a combination thereof. Ryan Thoni catching a small one, and the Nezumaa Rat shifting into high-low gear.

Please excuse the extra cheeseball performance in the above video clip.  This is seriously a good tip to make yourself up a bunch of cleaning solution to clean your sunglasses, fish finders, etc.   I couldn’t keep a serious face when I was trying to put together the square and normal version of the video, so I went with the “Sham-Wow” style.

Here are the secret ingredients to the Amazing Magic 50/50 Formula:

• 50% White Distilled Vinegar
• 50% Distilled Water
• Spray Bottle
• Micro Towel

It’s not just swimbait fishing here folks,  we clean, we wax, we polish and we shine.  We pride ourselves in providing solutions to the visually impaired, and are applying for a government grant!   Exactly one out of one person (me) that we interviewed said the Amazing Magic 50/50 Formula was safe, effective and chicks dig the vinegar smell.    We scored it a 9.4567  (would have been 9.4572 but the spray bottle wasn’t as ergonomically friendly as we’d preferred, but still a good spray bottle)!!!!!!!!

The Amazing 50/50 Formula cleans, shines, waxes, finishes, puts your boat on the trailer, cooks you dinner, and if you call in the next 20 minutes .... hahahahahaha.

When you read about Steve Jobs' life, you realize you should be taking notes because there are so many subtle business lessons woven into his life's story. Apple and Steve Jobs are to be studied, whether or not you have an Android phone or run a Windows laptop. The brand, the products and contributions to the world are second to none, and they (Steve for sure) broke all the rules to get there.

Okay, now I’m really going to annoy some people.  A book review?   A bass fisherman doing a book review?  First he does a DVD, and now we are talking about books?  The horror!!!  No this isn’t a book review, but let me put my Steve Jobs in action:  BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT.   I give this book an A+.  Great read, very insightful and I found myself laughing out loud reading it.  You have to put yourself in my shoes and take my appreciation for this book with a grain of salt.  Steve and Apple are familiar and resonate with me because the stories and tales in the book remind me so much of my former career, the folks I went to college and high school with, my brother, his wife, and his friends who live in and around the Silicon Valley who are all Standford grads, and the life lessons I’ve become aware of at 34. I have a personal connection to much of what I read about, have been to many of the places mentioned, been part of classic hardware/software/open vs. closed source/ sales vs. techy conversations in my former career, so this book strikes a chord to my soul.

Here is the Steve Jobs Biography I’m referring to:  The Steve Jobs Biography by Walter Isaacson

Our Southern Trout Eaters DVD was filmed mostly on a Sony Handycam Camcorder in Standard Definition.  The film was edited on a MacBook Pro using iMovie.   Southern Trout Eaters, to me, is a perfect example of the genius of Steve Jobs.  Making technology usable, and keeping things simple.    A fisherman can create a DVD out of the back of his truck with Steve’s technology.   Besides usability and simplicity, the brand and what is ‘imputed’ by Apple are incredible.  Amazing marketing, amazing design, amazing products coupled with a culture and style that are so Californian.     There are a lot of subtle business lessons woven into this book that I found awesome.  There are no rules in business.  You add the Internet and social networks, and we are literally in the wild west again when it comes many things business.   Steve was willing to “Think Different”, and did, and as that campaign points out, “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, often are the ones who do.”   Swimbait fishing, southernswimbait.com, the Southern Trout Eaters DVD, and my ongoing work are in lots of ways an attempt to think different, fish different, and not align myself with things in the sport that I clearly see as “complete shit”, to quote Steve.

Here are the quotes and points that really resonated with me,  from the book:

• “Simplification is the ultimate sophistication”  (borrowed from Leonardo DaVinci, but what an excellent quote)
• “He believed that great harvests came from arid sources, pleasure from restraint,” she noted.  “He knew equations that most people didn’t know:  Things led to their opposites.”
• Jobs told Egan, as he had a few other friends, about his premonition that he would not live a long life.  That was why he was driven and impatient, he confided.  “He felt a sense of urgency about all he wanted to get done,” Egan later said.
• Her boss, tried to get her to stay at Goldman, but instead she decided the work was unedifying.  “You could be really successful,” she said, “but you’re just contributing to capital formation.”
• Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
• So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
• Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?
• The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people

My former career selling software with eEye Digital Security taught me some valuable business lessons, but it was the lessons where technology intersected human nature I found most profound.  For example,  eEye Digital Security lost 100s of enterprise accounts back in the early 2000s to Foundstone (which was soon after acquired by McAfee).   The number one reason we lost so many deals to the big boy enterprise clients was because Foundstone had a simple “stop light” on their dashboard where all the information, all the data from all the stuff both our respective tools did rolled up into an aggregate score.  Green = good or secure, Yellow = Caution, you have some security risks that need to be addressed, Red = Alert, major holes and security breaches happening.    We basically vomited up all this information and could tell a customer that a printer on the 3rd floor of their building was running HP-UX that had a known vulnerability, had this IP address,  and all this machine info,  but to the executive, to the enterprise level accounts, they just want to know, hey, are we good bad happy or sad at a very very high level?  Net this stuff out for me.  So what if our printer has a flaw?  What is the worse thing that happens if our HP-UX printer has this flaw exploited by the ‘bad guys’?  How likely is that to happen?  Things our engineers and executives failed to recognize—the business impact of the flaws, not just ability to find the flaws.   I had a prospective client from a very large insurance company in Cleveland ask my team, “So, what does this all mean?”  My engineers and executives couldn’t answer and I knew we were done.    eEye Digital Security has gone on to become a major player at the enterprise account level (ie DoD Wide Contract, how is that for enterprise class comeback?), but those early years were painful, because we had a shot at being a 100-500 million dollar company, going public, and all of us retiring early.   That was not our path though, our path took me and my career  to Atlanta in January 2005.  I caught my first Southern Trout Eater on an 8″ Rainbow Trout Huddleston in March 2005, and that’s where all this started.

Steve Jobs, I appreciate your life’s story and your work.  I’m not sure if I would be on your “A” List or on the list of complete shit, but I sure have been inspired reading your biography.   I want to do incredible things.  I want to do things in fishing, different than how they are being done.  I want my legacy to be what I’ve created and contributed, not what I’ve consumed.   I said it online in a Facebook post recently, I’d like to be an ‘aloha’ version of Steve, less a tyrant, less an asshole, but on the same wavelength of focus and drive to do things in a space that I know and love, and am willing to ‘break the rules’ of traditional fishing (including talking about things like books and music) to get there.

southernswimbait.com  proudly presents, an inside look at Mickey Ellis and the 3:16 Lure Company.   I was in Southern California the Summer of 2011, and had a chance to reconnect with Mickey Ellis while I was there.   I hadn’t seen or talked to Mickey in almost 10 years.    I sat down with Mickey and got a lot of his perspectives, insights, and thoughts on a range of topics. The first and most important thing I realized, was an attempt to educate folks on who is Mickey Ellis and the 3:16 Lure Company? How did he start getting into creating swimbaits and why?  The Mission Fish is a literal product of this journey as you’ll hear.

You will have to be patient, because there is a lot of footage I’m trying to process and synthesize that I’m going to be including in my future projects.    For example, wouldn’t it be interesting to hear Mickey Ellis, Ken Huddleston, and Scott Whitmer respond to the same question(s), to get 3 different points of view from 3 very accomplished bigbaitsmen?  Or is that too dramatic and controversial?   There are other folks I’d like to engage, but I haven’t gotten there yet.    These things take time.

My 2012 tournament season gives me a great opportunity to focus on some things that have been on my mind for some time.   Add the  8″ Huddleston Deluxe Weedless Trout (I hope) and Mickey’s Version 2.0 Mission Fish (I hope), and we are on new ground.    Whether or not you believe in salvation, or believe in the idea of ‘Providence’ —it doesn’t matter, what matters is the conversation about catching more and bigger fish and taking bigbait fishing to new places, or applying bigbaits in new ways,  and contributing to the “conversation”.

Take a look at Mickey’s baits:  316lurecompany.com

How can I have a conversation about bigbait fishing, realism, softbait vs. hardbait, grass swimbait fishing, baby bass, bluegill, frogs, terrestrials, trout baits--- and not include 3:16 Lure Company and Mickey Ellis? "He who does not see the hand of God in this is blind, sir, blind!" Confederate General Stonewall Jackson.