ORLANDO, Fla. — A long time first in fishing, Kevin VanDam is now first in fashion with Mossy Oak Elements.
Mossy Oak Elements, a new camo line of fishing clothing, announced a bevy of partnerships at ICAST on Wednesday, including it becoming the Official Pattern of B.A.S.S.
“Mossy Oak came to me a while ago with this idea they wanted to get into the fishing market with a lifestyle brand,” VanDam said. “They created this water-based pattern. It comes in a ton of different colors — obviously I like the red, because black and red are my colors.
“Mossy Oak is about more than sticks and leaves. They’re a really good company, very family oriented and environmentally conscious.”
Mossy Oak, founded by Toxey Haas in 1986 and headquartered in West Point, Miss., has been the official camo of Ducks Unlimited and the National Wild Turkey Federation.
“We had to keep it a secret until today. They launched the pattern yesterday, and they launched the relationship with me today, but the B.A.S.S. sponsorship will be released later today,” VanDam said early Wednesday.
Huk already had a 24-foot section of its huge booth dedicated the Mossy Oak Elements clothing. Huk’s people said it was an exciting partnership to work with the well-established outdoor company.
“It is a Huk exclusive, so you can only find it on our apparel,” said Nick Pujic of Huk. “It’s available across the entire line of our tech apparel — hoodies, quarter zips, full zips, UV shirts, short and long sleeve. You keep all the technological elements of the garments that we’ve had — like Ice technology that keeps you cool, but then you just get a really cool looking pattern.”
“It’s truly legitimately designed for fishing lifestyle,” VanDam said. “Huk, to me, is the premier leader in performance fishing attire.”
CALLING LONG-DISTANCE RESERVATIONS
As the saying goes, you snooze, you lose.
Robin and Randy Howell don’t plan on losing. As soon as the 2018 Elite schedule was released, they set out to make reservations so they have a place to stay at each event.
With one of the larger campers, they require special accommodations at RV parks. This year that task was made a bit more difficult by the fact there were vacationing in Mexico when the schedule was released.
“It was the whole international calling — we didn’t have the plan set up,” said Robin, the reservations manager of Howell Fishing. “We had to do some things by email that had to be done immediately.”
Now, the Howells don’t take the camper to far-flung locales, like Wisconsin or California, but making sure they have a campsite to park their camper, boat and trucks is important to getting him in a mind to fish.
“It can be difficult,” she said. “We submitted the online form for Paris, Tenn., and they called us back and said they can put us on a spot but it won’t be a very big one. Will we fit? I hope something opens up.
“Last year we had every reservation done within an hour. We tag-teamed it, Randy takes this one, I take this one. This is the first year I don’t have them all made as of right now, but we made the most important ones.”
THIS SHAKEY HEAD HAS LEGS
Touring pro David Dudley had time at the display tank showing off his design, the Perfection Lures Sure Hook Up Shaky Head. The two titanium wire legs work with the flat bottom of the football head to keep bait standing up.
“With these legs, it’s going to make your lure stands up and is visible. Second, these legs keep it stable so when it comes up and over limbs of a brush pile, it’s not going to turn and get hung up.”
Dudley came up with the design about four years ago, and it’s been drawing and gaining attention. He said there is a fact proving it keeps baits up.
“How you’re going to know it’s standing up, because you’re going to skull hook about 8 of 10,” he said. “Typically, it’s a lottery with a Shakey Head where you hook it.”
