As usual ICAST was a blast! Great folks, new stuff, good times – but it was a little different. This is just one guy's 2c so value it as such:

- Maybe the same # of exhibitors, but somehow the mix was different and fewer peeps walking around.

- A lot fewer bass pros were there, which surprised me since that's a great networking/relationship/media opportunity. Some of the newer, younger cats were there though, good job to 'em. Saw a couple "retired" guys working hard: KVD and Skeet. They both still have that competitive look in their eye, great to see it.

- A lot fewer images of bass pros on the exhibitor booths – which to me meant not as many bassin' companies.

- Seemed like a lot of accessories folks, a lot of saltwater, more catfish stuff and a lot more Chinese companies. Though again, that was just what I saw and I for sure didn't see everything. Big obvious change: Way fewer lithium battery companies.

Alright that's the quick context, let's git to it! And remember:

1. All bassin' companies don't go to ICAST.

2. It is impossible for 1 person – or even 2 – to see everything so take this all with some sodium chloride.

Also, since I'm a still-recovering ICASTaholic 😁 I might be forgetting something – but hopefully not!

Gitcha Blaster video fix here:

If you're thinking urchins had to be a trend, yep they were and was the most talked about bait category. BUT you might be surprised that I don't think I saw even 10 new ones.

Some of that was the mix of folks who were there, but I think most of it was that these baits have been rolling out "too fast/too furious" the last 5-6 months.

To me, a trend within the urchin category was bigger and maybe mostly smaller. Or maybe that smaller trend is one we're about to see. Guessing 4 reasons for this:

1. We already have "regular size" urchins and several bigger ones (eg, Fullcast and up).

2. It's summer, people are fishing deep, little ones can be dropshotted.

3. The tour pros are going up north and will be fishing deep with them.

4. Most important – "smaller" apparently was the OG size secretly used by the Japanese pros fishing the Elites. Meaning NOT the size Pake South, Chris Johnston and Jason Christie won with. And the Japanese guys were fishing 'em deep.

#5 should be that Easton Fothergill said to me that he doesn't use them for smallmouths, but since Easton is the king of sandbagging you know he's fibbin'! 😁🤙 Here he is talkin' on the BB YT 'bout smaller urchins.

The guessed consensus about this category of baits was that they'll be around for a while, but demand for them might slack off because a) they're not easy to lose and b) by the end of this year every fisherman will have multiple sizes of them.

Top urchins

1. Rapala CrushCity The CEO

Won ICAST Best Soft Bait, big deal is that it has glass powder incorporated in the plastic, which makes it slow-sink. Also has a little different shape.

I asked but no one would tell me if the idea for the glass came from Jacob Wheeler getting super mad and chucking something through a window...😁🤙 Just messin'!

Check the official vid on YT with it underwater.

2. Lunkerhunt Kimera Worm

To me this was the "best" or most practical take on an urchin I saw. You can shakey it, dropshot it, TX rig it, Neko it, free rig, etc – or just cut the tail off and get that urchin profile and action. Looks good underwater.

In other words, you don't need to learn a new rig or get new storage or whatever – it's an "urchin worm" that we all intuitively know how to feesh.

Personally I can't wait to shakey-head and TX-rig this deal. YT vid on it here.

3. BaitFuel NanoSpike

Someone say small urchins? Well here you go! Believe it's 9mm, good colors, infused with BaitFuel. Saw it being "fondled" by a big-name pro in the booth and would not at all be surprised to see it play up north.

Supposed to be for crappie, which was kinda a trend (more below). Will be out this fall. 

Urchin storage

Ain't cheap but man you gotta treat these baits extra-special! Here's a couple we saw:

Evolution Fishing Creature Keeper Case/Dice Dividers

From the vid with Matt Becker talking about it, sounds like the Dice Dividers – what Velcros into the sides to put the wires – will be available separately and go into Evolution Fishing Soft Plastix Cases if you already have those.

Buzbe Basic Deep – Urchin Bait Box

Little different style – the box has inserts so you don't have to keep the bait on the wire that it came in. Might make it a little easier to change 'em out?

Bigger and smaller baits have been trends the last couple years at ICAST, and on the "bigger" end it's been almost all glides and swimbaits. From what we saw at this year's ICAST, that trend ain't slowin' down. Here's the BB's Brett "somewhat" Jolley with his 2c.

_____

The glides got a little shrouded this year by the all powerful urchin, but a ton of 'em were out there and folks have gotten smarter on how to fish 'em. Why more glides? I think 3 main reasons:

1. The hand-poured resin ones can disappear quick when they go up for sale and can be $$$$.

2. Social media exposure as well as so many college and top-level bass derb finishes with big baits has folks not as "scared" to throw a 7-10" bait. I mean c'mon we've been throwing 12" worms forever!

3. FFS has made it less scary to chunk an expensive bait around – being able to always keep track of it and keep 'em out of snags. 

Anyways, the River2Sea S-Waver kinda got the deal started a while back, then Spro KGB was one of the first "newer" glides if you will to be available to the public/mass produced, then the 6th Sense Draw, then the Berkley Chop Block and more recently the Bucca Brand Trick Shad. Now a bunch of other good looking glides that are getting real close to that resin action that folks like. 

The rod and reel education and availability caught up with 'em too and -boom- we got a pile more glide bait fishermen. Here's a few things that caught my eye.

Bucca Brand Trick Herring

Not a lot of easily accessible herring/fished fast glides available so I was excited to see Mike Bucca and Bucca Brand come out with these. Mike is of course a glide 🧙‍♂️ and fishes around a lot of Georgia herring lakes, so you know he's got that thing dialed.

Check out this short IG vid with the full rundown on it. 

Rapala PXR Stryda 180

A well-designed "chopper" style glide. Cool deal is it has a threaded insert for the new Rapala Screw DIVER System Weights (comes stock with a 3/16-oz) so you can fish it as deep or shallow as you want. Great idea IMO so you can keep track of how your baits are weighted and also you don't tear up your baits putting nail weights in 'em.

Carl Jocumsen designed it and gave Jay a great rundown on it that will be up soon on BB social.

Rapala CrushCity The Governor Swimbait

The size of bigger soft swimbait everyone needs, this bait also has that Screw Diver weighting system.

FishLab Pro Hydra Glide

Another cool FishLab bait (6" and 8.5") that is the brainchild of Bill Siemantel and sounds like it's made for fishing faster if you want. Some deets from him:

> "A lot of [glides] can't handle speed. You reel most glide baits faster and they come up and blow out. We thinned down the body and used a one-joint system with hydro fins – you can reel it at a faster clip. You can speed-reel it....

> "When it stops, it turns, hovers and just sits in their face.

> "It has a really tight wobble and almost looks like an articulating, multi-jointed bait [when reeled fast]. The faster you swim it, the more natural it looks."

A few more

Lunkerhunt Apex Glidr Swimbait

Unfortunately didn't get to spend any time with this at the show but that 'blue gill' color looks 🔥! It is on TW.

Strike King Hustlin' Hog Glide Bait

Another good-looking herring glide from Strike King's collab with Tater Hog. Doesn't have to just be a herring deal either – I'm all about a fast-swimming bait to fire out at those schools that come up busting on gizzards and threadfin in the summer. 

Throwback Baits Metro LT Glide Bait

Same looks and features of the resin Throwback Baits Metro Glide now for MSRP $49.99 on TW.

Micro-trend 1: Shallow jerkbaiting

Not gonna say this is a full-on trend yet but I think it's heading in that direction: jerkbaits made for shallow water.

Bill Lewis came out with the Matt Becker-designed Snap Stik 110, and Megabass has the new Vision 110 SSR (not the SR!) which Brandon Palaniuk fished to get 2nd in this year's Santee Cooper Elite.

Also, Brent Ehrler and Justin Lucas won the MLF team tourney in LA in Nov '25 partly doing exactly that. In that deal Brent fished a smaller regular jerkbait – a Lucky Craft Slender Pointer 97 – but these new baits are different. Of course they float, but the bills aren't the same so they don't dive as deep.

If you are of the alternate persuasion, I gotta mention the biggest jerkbait I've ever seen ≠ the Mike Bucca-designed Bucca Brand El Toro:

7" and 1.5-oz with a brush tail – when's the last time a bass has seen a jerkbait that big?? Here's an IG vid of it underwater – looks good!

Micro-trend 2: A better Senko??

Okay that's crazy talk but look at this:

👀 That's the new Yamamoto Covert Senko. Since everyone has some version of a "stick worm" now, will other folks jump on the Senko with legs deal – making it a trend? If it catches 'em I bet they will!

Will debut soon in 5" and 6 colors. WANT!! YT video here.

Micro-trend 3: Neko-rigging

More on this in the next BB, but even though the Neko has been a deal for a while now, really seems like we're seeing even more baits made for and fished with Nekos.

"Anti-trend" 1: Minnows

Yep some new minnows and some new jigheads, but overall chasing the minnow bite was way down at ICAST this year. Either the minnows got crushed by urchins or fishermen have all the choices of minnows and jigheads they need (for now) or both.

Or maybe the companies just had a lot of other baits they wanted to finally roll out.

That said, one new minnow that stood out to me is the 4.5" Robo Minnow (shoulda been Robo Minno!). A minnow in Robo colors? Sign me up mang!

Don't see it in morning or margarita which I'm assuming was a typo??

"Anti-trend" 2: "Regular" finesse

Is finesse still a trend? For sure, mostly because of FFS and tournament pressure. But at ICAST, I'm not sure it looked like a big trend, at least at the traditional sizes. Why:

1. Chasing the urchin deal. Finesse stuff is still coming out from all companies – plus stuff from Japan like new Fuji rigging deals coming to the US soon – but it got overshadowed by urchins.

2. Not many Japanese brands were at ICAST.

3. The bassin' companies had a good amount of new stuff, and I'm gonna say most of it was not finesse.

Guess this was more of a "muted" trend, rather than an anti-trend.

BUT "micro" finesse – or small finesse – is definitely a trend. Which you can see from the "crappie baits" deal below.

Since Brett "possibly" Jolley is our main man at Target Crappie – and guides for bass and crappie on Rayburn – he is all about finding the crappie 🧃 anywhere he goes. Here's what he thinks about crappie + ICAST + bass.

_____

So many crappie baits popped up at ICAST that look like they'd be good morsels for bass too. The guys at Great Lakes Finesse have already done a pretty good job of showing the bassin' world that giant pressured fish will eat ultra-small baits. 

The crappie baits that the major companies are coming out with are getting some sweet colors too – a bunch of the pro crappie guys are starting to go from colors that "pop" to getting as natural as possible, so the colors and details on these baits are getting real good.

When I was talking to anglers and folks that worked on these baits, bass was always a part of the convo. So here's a few of the bass-iest crappie baits I saw:

1. 1.5" Bobby Garland Slab Stalk'R

Tons of deets on this bait over at targetcrappie.com but here's a few key points from Bobby Garland's Skylar St. Yves:

> "It's designed to be fished at a really slow speed and still get tail action that's not erratic. It keeps [the action] nice and tight, just like a minnow or shad in a natural state.

> "Years and years of fishing experience and underwater research of these fish showed that the less tail action, the better. It keeps a really natural signature coming off that bait no matter what speed it's being retrieved at.

> "We found out during testing – it's a bass attention-getter [especially] if you're fishing through spotted bass or anything like that."

2. Rapala CrushCity "crappie baits"

Rapala is going from 0 to 100 in the crappie baits category, and these juicy morsels look just as good as their full-sized CrushCity brothers.

Shapes you already know are the Lil' Freeloader (2.25"), Lil' Mooch Minnow (1.75") and Lil' Mayor (1.75"). Here's 3 new shapes:

Top to bottom that's the Fry Ball (2"), Sizzle Shad (2.25") and Trident (2").

The Fry Ball is the one I'm probably the most excited to throw – with the detail in the mold, definitely going to look like 2 baitfish hanging around.

Not sure if this was in the thought process of making this bait, but I've heard crappie and walleye guys say they will nose-hook another bait on a rig to give it "more,"and the tails kinda go in different directions as you work it. Wonder if we'll ever see it in full size too? 🤔

_____

BaitFuel has also been pumping out some great crappie-sized baits, including that new NanoSpike urchin deal.

If you're thinking that that small of a bait is just a clear water smallmouth/spotted bass deal – here's 2 of my biggest bass this year, and both came on a 2" Bobby Garland Baby Shad. Don't sleep on the small baits man!

Wild not in a novelty way but in a good way – meaning different and/or fun, and they should catch 'em. No particular order.

1. FishLab Neko Flex Shad

When I saw that bait announced, I thought: Okay another minnow. The Neko part didn't sink in. Then at ICAST, FishLab bait designer crazy Bill Siemantel showed me how he rigs it, and I got to cast it into the ICAST pond and feel it. And then see it in a tank. Definitely surprised me.

Gonna post a video of it, but the main deal is it's 100% meant to be Neko-rigged as you can tell by those dots on the head – that's where the hook point can go. Above those dots is a small metal spring that a) makes it more durable and b) adds to the action.

The action is crazy: It feels like a lipless hard bait when you fish it! Seriously – I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't feel it with my own hands. Watching it in the tank, it doesn't act like I pictured it, like a lipless hard bait. Instead, somehow it LOOKS like a hunting soft-plastic minnow when you pull it.

They also have a new Neko Flex Craw – which is actually meant to mimic a freshwater shrimp. Believe it's the same spring deal and action.

2. 15" NetBait BaitFuel Finiki Prop Shot Worm

Look at that deal! And the bass ate it like he was sucking down spaghetti lol! Maybe we could call this the "anti-Ned rig"?? 😁

When Marty and Doc saw it they were like:

😁

3. Wurm Wacky Wavy Ned Man

You might look at that deal and think – that's just a novelty bait. Well how 'bout this:

To a bass I'm sure it'll look like a crawfish so really it's just fun for us! Or doubly fun once you catch one on it.

Wurm is a new company – no relation to former FLW Tour pro Mike Wurm (I asked lol) – and all they do is fun stuff that catches fish. I love it man!

Not sure if you can order 'em yet, here's their site.

Here's some, hopefully gonna get caught up on all of it on Thursdee!

1. TN: Man who broke TN largie record in Feb just passed

Darren Nunley was 54. His fish was a 15-lb 7.5-oz (27 7/8" long) giant out of Nickajack. Bless you bassin' brother. Please pray for his family and friends. ✝️🙏

2. MLF has a new collab with Star Trek

I mean Star LINK! 😆 Very interesting and pretty cool. MLF seems to be pushing into tech with that and a new app (deets coming soon) – my 2c is that's potentially good. Let's see what happens man....

3. GA: Jack Wingate and Pam Martin-Wells benches at Seminole

Man just benches but good to hear they are remembered.

4. MN: Mille Lacs committee meeting TODAY 6-8 pm

At McQuoid’s Inn (1325 State Highway 47, Isle) and via online videoconference:

> Agenda topics include a mid-summer creel survey update, regulations discussion, special sampling efforts, and a discussion about fishing tournaments and the harvestable surplus.

5. TN: Buy the WBE pay per view and you might get to fish

WBE = that Elites vs BPT deal.

6. NE: Travis Ely memorial scholly winner recycles plastic baits

Logan Greeno from the U of NE. Also has a local organization to intro "underprivileged" kids to fishing. Outstanding. Someone give that young dude a job!

7. College anglers increasingly liking FFS

Of course they are! Since it's basically not "regulated" at the college and HS levels, not sure what anyone expects.

Also not sure what that might mean from a long-term perspective – when all those folks are "in power" in bassin'. Not saying it'll be bad or good, just don't know.

8. TX: Wiley U has a new bassin' coach

They have 2 bassin' programs?

> ...Aurmon Satchell as assistant AD. In addition...Satchell will serve as the head coach for the university’s new women’s flag football and men’s and women’s bass fishing programs.

9. New Precision Sonar Lowrance mount for Utrex QUEST

Lots of guys want to run that QUEST no matter what units they have.

10. Brandon Cerka promoted to Suzuki Marine exec VP

Of sales, marketing and service.

11. West Marine closing more stores

32 more for 91 total. It also tried to auction off some assets but got no "qualified offers."

12. Waypoint streaming outdoor TV promotes 2

Katherine Elliott is the new VP of media operations and distribution, and Graig "Knight and" Hale is the new VP of business development and programming.

Headline of the Day

Lake Isabella continues to pump out chunky lunkers

"Chunky lunkers" sounds like a Willy Wonka candy or a cereal to me for some reason...🤔😁

"No LiveScope was involved, no Coikes, just old-school flipping a Brush Hog."

- That's NC's Chris "caveman" 😁 Baldwin talkin' – he won the James River, VA BFL. BUT he caught his last fish on a dropshot, which probably saved him from a bassin' wellness check at the ramp...🤣

Just messin', love it!

Unfortunately my phone focused on Taku Ito's face here, but the point was to show how he rigs his urchins. You might be able to tell from how he's holding it – it's a single hook, I THINK the Ryugi Brutal Hook with the weedguard but don't hold me to it.

The bottom line is no frog hook, treble or quad – though TW sells a Brutal TWIN Hook. 👀

Fishers of Men Tournament Trail

Bass Chaplain podcasts

Contact Chris Wells the Bass Chaplain

All Bass No Bull podcast

Advanced Angler

StrayCasts crazy web show!

Champion Jigs

Trophy Bass Co.