Do "Pro's" influence your tackle purchasing?

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Do Pro's influence your tackle purchase

  • YES

    Votes: 15 37.5%
  • NO

    Votes: 28 70.0%

  • Total voters
    40

LonLB

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 30, 2010
Messages
805
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Location
Klinger Lake MI
I see LOTS of people say that what a pro uses does not influence their buying decisions. I never see someone say that they are influenced. Yet somebody has to be, Otherwise their would be no such thing as a sponsorship.

So my question is, if you are being TRULY honest, does the equipment the pro's (or your favorite fishing personality) use influence your tackle purchases?

Since it seems everyone says no, the key here will be to be 100% honest
 
I'll go first and say absolutely.
Their is one Pro, and one group of folks who have a television show that has helped me to catch TONS of fish. Dating all the way back to my early teen years. If I see them using it, or hear of them using it, it WILL work for me.
 
Ill go 2nd and say Absolutely not!!

I use real world tactics and go from day to day as to what is working and what has worked in past years. Just because a pro/host is using a bait in MS to catch fish doesn't mean its going to produce here.

I'll rarely even watch fishing shows.. most of it is commercialized hype trying to sell you the latest gadget/bait released by whomever is sponsoring them anyway..
 
Nope, I blame hank parker because of it. :LOL2:


I use zoom products fishing more than any. Don't like buying into any of that commercial crap
 
No for open water fishing. I fished in BASS federation for years and I learned more fishing with those guys than anywhere else.

Yes for ice fishing. Dave Genz is the man!
 
just because i see someone using a new lure dosent mean i go out and buy it, but if i see or read of a new technique being used and producing it would be foolish not to try, i usualy stick with the old methods... hell i dont even wacky rig anything. never "drop shotted"anything, or even carolina rigged a worm, pretty much texas rigg, rapalas, spinnerbaits all here, when im bassing anyhow. walleye another beast usualy go for jigs and crawler/minnow, or a lindy set up/ crawler harness, if im going for gills its all fly rod..
 
Absolutely Yes. Someone's got to keep these sponsors around... :mrgreen:
 
No... mostly because a lot of the tackle the pro's talk about is really expensive. I dont care how good a $18 crank bait is... i will not buy it!
 
I don't use what the pro's use for 2 reasons:

1 - now I know what everybody and their grandma is going to be throwing, and if I want to win - I need to throw something different.

2 - by the time you find out what the pros are throwing, it's probably some variation of what you are already doing.

If I see them throwing something out of the ordinary, I'll take it and make my own variation (wobble, size, different blades, etc.). Right now, that's what I'm doing and I'm literally wearing out guys on a lake they fish all the time and I only get to fish it occasionally.

I've got secrets (atleast what I think are secrets), but I fish with guys in my club in the same boat, as well as guys from other clubs - and you'd be surprised how many times I see them start something they think is their "little secret" only to be thinking to myself - well, I gotta find something new because if he knows, so will everybody else in a few weeks.

I don't usually do this, but with some particular baits, I have to cut them off and tie something else on because guys are always walking around my boat at weigh-in, and I can see them putting their eyes on everything I threw - or atleast what they think I threw....
 
First and most important, I'm cheap and not anywhere near pro status. :lol:

My high end rods are Ugly Sticks that are used for salt water! I have a couple of Shimanos but most of my fresh water rods are Wally World stuff or Bass Pro Shop specials. The rod that caught the most trout is a $14 Wally World that we use year after year and it is only five feet tall.

My spinners and bait casters are also on the cheap side. The most expensive one I have is a Daiwa that cost a whopping $45!
 
I voted no.

Most of the time I stick with what has worked in the past.

And to find out what works, I just use the process of elimination.
I'll walk into a sporting goods store and just randomly buy stuff. If it works, i'll buy more.


I'm also with russ...I like to put my own spin on baits. I'll put diff blades on spinner baits, re-paint crankbaits, and try dyeing plastics diff colors.
 
I think all you, "NO" voters are missing out. :wink:

I won't blindly buy or try something because any old pro says so. But there are a few (three actually-forgot about the other one when I posted this) that when I hear, or see something from them, I can count on it to catch fish.



FWIW one guy is a local, that fishes local tournaments, and Stren, BFL tournaments in FLW. (so does his wife-and she got co-angler of the year in the BFL) I fished against this guy a couple times, and when a field of 70 guys struggles to get a limit, this guy hauls in big sacks.
 
Once my GF and I were shore fishing for trout. It was a very busy day on that lake and shoreline was very crowded. A group of older men were fishing next to us and just hauling them in one after another while others around them weren't even getting a nibble including us. My GF went to talk to them and found out that we were using the same bait. After they caught their limit, one of them showed us their secret which was a type of hook that I have never seen.

We found a tackle shop near home that carried that type of hook so on our next fishing excursion to that lake, we tried it and we were pulling them in while others around us weren't so lucky. There were people just waiting to take our spot when we were done.

In this case, it was literally the type of hook for that type of fishing.
 
Do I pay attention to what they are using...YES.....do I buy the same thing they are using.....NO, almost never.

I'm constantly reading articles about fishing. During the Fall, Spring, Summer, Professional X uses --- lure. Do I run out and buy it? No way. Do I look into details about it on line? Absolutely.

Take a football jig for instance:

I'll look at methods of how it's used. I'll look at the trailers that are available for it. I'll look at the quality between different makers.....Then, I may or may not buy a few based on all the facts that I've learned. But....it's most always not the same one that Professional X used. Most of the time they are too expensive. All that advertising cost has to go somewhere.
 
i fly fish almost exclusively. all fish eat the same stuff.simple entomology is all you need to know,and then tie your own flies for pennies. if you match the hatch,you get 75 plus trout in 2 days :D
 
After KVD won the classic with the yellow/black crank, thats what everyone wanted to buy from me at the tackle shows a few weeks later.
 

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