I’m continually pleased at the proficiency and command of the various terms by FishStrong readers.  Most of you have really adopted the vocabulary quite well and use it with mastery.

However, new readers and fishing newcomers sometimes need a little help to fully understand some fishing terms, especially those thrown around here on FishStrong.  A fishing glossary seems like a good idea.  So, how about a FishStrong glossary?  Here it is…

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30-Percenter  |ˈTHərtē pərˈsentər|

An über enthusiastic and delusional member of at least one (often several) illegitimate “pro staff” scams perpetuated by countless fishing-related companies. Often members of the Dreamer’s Class, they actually pay fishing tackle companies for the chance to wear a jersey and work at boat shows to “play pro”.  They demonstrate a servile mentality that is willing to do anything to preserve their “discount deal” status, which is indiscriminately awarded to anyone, regardless of fishing ability, a “deal” which no doubt leaves ample overhead room for a healthy profit margin on the seller’s behalf.  Their need to feel “pro” is further exhibited by the fact that they buy their own jerseys and pay to put the company’s logo on it.  Even after losing their 30-Percenter “pro staff” status — a rare occurrence — they will often continue wearing the same jersey for years thereafter.

Bridge People  |brij ˈpēpəl|

Fishermen who are seen skulking around and under bridges and adjacent riprap banks, most assuredly characterized by the trash they leave behind in the aftermath of their presence (malt liquor cans, bottles, chicken liver tubs, wrappers, empty bags of stink bait, and tangled balls of used 25lb+ test monofilament).

Captain Sizzle: |ˈkaptən ˈsizəl|

Jerry McKinnis

Flat Brimmer  |flat brimər|

A semi-pejorative term describing an angler who clowns himself out by wearing a ghetto-looking flat billed hat with the hopes of it furthering his “image” and increasing his sizzle factor.

Made for TV League Fishing  |mād fôr tē vē lēg ˈfiSHiNG|

Major League Fishing (MLF)

Ponzi  |ˈpänzē|

The tournament industry practice of dangling the promise of grandeur, celebrity status, money, sponsorships, media exposure, overall Eh-LEET-ness and/or any other element of lucrative advancement to lure in an angler’s entry fee money for upcoming tournaments.  Examples of sizzled up success are relentlessly shown to prospective tournament fishermen in order to herd them and their money into the system.

Sizzle  |ˈsizəl|

noun:  Anything possessing the quality of excessive hype, disingenuousness, and “snake oil” like characteristics.  Most often used for the purpose of marketing, promoting, selling, and self-glorification with the goal of impressing an audience with a sense of awe and/or delusional notions about the true nature of something or someone.

verb:  To spin or present something very ordinary and unoriginal into something it’s not for the purpose of fooling sizzle-suckers into believing the hype, adopting the sizzled narrative as their own, and/or coughing up their money to support the sizzle.

Sizzlenomics  |ˈsizəl nämiks |

The practice of attempting to justify an unsustainable fishing “career”, unprofitable business decisions, and undesirable odds worse than Las Vegas, regarding tournament bass fishing, in order to feel better about one’s participation in the sport and the wisdom of entering into the Ponzi system.

Example of sizzlenomics in action:

“I lost $15,000 last tournament season and I need to put next year’s entry fees on a credit card.  However, I did receive exposure, which is worth something, and now that I got this bad season behind me, next year will be MY YEAR.  Sign me up for the Ponzi!!”

Sizzleosity  |ˈsizəl äsitē|

The quality of having the tendency to sizzle something up.  Examples include companies that produce “shad sound” units with “KVD expansion chips”, companies that produce sunglasses that sink slowly,  companies that produce lures with laser eyes and “croaking” sounds, and half the content published in Bassmaster magazine.

Sizzle-suckers   |ˈsizəl ˈsəkərs|

Suckers of the sizzle.  Those who absorb every ounce of sizzle presented to them.  Anyone who requires sizzle for marketing efforts to be effective on them.

Team Deal Czar  |tēm dēl zär|

Aaron Hall, the employee of FLW who is primarily responsible for selecting anglers to be on FLW team deals.

UFP |yo͞o ef pē|

Ultimate Fishing Pose

More examples found here…  The Definitive UFP Collection

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The FishStrong glossary may be amended and updated as necessary.

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Fishing lingo is a funny thing.  We go around talking about the craziest and even potentially offensive things and don’t even flinch.  We say these things in public, around kids, elders, and people who don’t have the slightest clue as to what we’re talking about.  What happens when you alter the context of everyday fishing lingo?  You get really cheesy pickup lines.  Sometimes just a pronoun or two changes everything and sometimes you don’t need to change anything at all!  No wonder people look at us like we’re crazy when we get neck deep in conversations with fishing friends.

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“I’d like to scan your structure!”

“Can I waypoint you?”

“You’ve got my heart racing like a horny toad across a shallow grassy flat.”

“If you want to see some fast action, check out my flippin’ stick.  It’s sensitive too.”

“If you were my girl, I would never cull you.”

“Which do you prefer… power or finesse?… I’m good at both.”

“I thought you were bigger at first…”

“Girl, you’ve got curves like a topo map.”

“Baby, you are sexy like a shad.”

“Yes, that dress does make you look fat, but don’t worry babe, I love fat bellies on big ol’ girls”.

“You’ve turned up my sensitivity and my ping rate is off the charts!”

“It’s spawning season and I’ve made the bed!!”

“Wanna see my holeshot?”

“I like this spot.  Time to deploy my Power Pole”.

“I’m pretty well equipped… I actually have two Power Poles”.

I’m not really a slow, finesse kind of guy.  I don’t beat around the bush when I’m on a money spot.  I go straight for the reaction bite.”

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Got anymore pickup lines?

Fish Strong!

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Disclaimer:  This is a fictional character inspired by thousands of real bass fisherman.  This character is used to parody and make commentary about various hot topics and trends in bass fishing.

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The Water

Notice the light chop and clarity.  Visibility was at least 3+ feet and temperature was around 69 degrees.

The Sky

Notice the color and clouds.  When you see this, you better at least pick up a moving bait… something that allows you to cover water horizontally.

The Cover

Notice lily pads nearby.  There is healthy green milfoil growing all through the area.

The Reel

Use a 6.4:1 gear ratio.  You want it fast enough to keep it above the grass.  Using a faster gear ratio can work, but it’s not always better.  Sometimes 7:1 is too fast.  Once you start catching them, it’s easy to get excited and reel too fast without even thinking.  The 7:1 gear ratios offer no forgiveness for overly-excited retrievers and will result in the jig “burning” back to you.    The fish most often want the swim jig moving at a moderate clip, just fast enough to keep it ticking the grass from above.  In my experience, the moderately fast paces are better in depths of 4-5′.

The Rod

You’ll need a longer rod for a couple reasons.  Longer casts and extra length to keep the jig high over the top of milfoil.  A shorter rod will make you reel faster to keep it from getting bogged down.

The Swim Jig and Trailer

Use a 5/16 ounce or 3/8 ounce.  The size needed will depend on the wind and how high the grass is growing up.  You can’t beat a black and blue color when the overcast skies are darker.  If the clouds lighten up or the sun starts to break through in patches, change to a white or “shad” colored variation.

When you’re dealing with big fish, it’s hard to beat a swimbait style trailer.  Sometimes they want this vibration more than the vibration of other trailer styles.  The extra bulk is nice too.  It allows you to cast farther and presents a larger profile to big fish.  These trailer styles also seem to work best at moderate retrieve speeds.  The trailer in the picture is perfectly matched with the jig, but you can also use a green pumpkin colored trailer too.

The Prize

Sometimes you’ll come back with a little extra salad too!

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Here are some of those highlights:

Chris Zaldain

Chris Zaldain sits at 8th place in the AOY standings. This name definitely sticks out among some of the others in the top 10. He’s having a great season and is on track to potentially double his 2012 earnings.

Chris Zaldain

Ott Defoe

Ott Defoe 43rd. This may be high for some guys, but it’s low for Ott. Will he make a late season charge? We’re accustomed to seeing his name in the hunt for AOY. As good as he is, this shows that fishing performance is most often cyclical.

Brandon “Paula-Nick”

Same story with Brandon Palaniuk, but even worse. Is this a possible step back to reality? He’s proven himself as a solid competitor who can hang with anyone, but it’s not looking that way when you see his current AOY position — 89th place. I think once you get down that low, a little bit of Dave Smith and Grant Goldbeck rub off on you and it’s hard to climb back up. However, don’t count him out. His finishes jump around a lot. He’s literally all over the map. There are three remaining tournaments, so he could claim a victory, then another 79th like he did on the Alabama River, and then make a top 50 cut to end the season on an improved note. As of right now, nobody can say he’s the model of consistency. Not everyone can be.

Mike Iaconelli

What’s up with Iaconelli in 53rd? Will he make the Classic? I’d really like to see him make a late season run and perhaps even score a win. He needs it right now. BASS loves showing him when he’s at his worst. It’s like they appoint extra cameras to him when they know he’s down in the dumps and about to snap. Lately it feels like Iaconelli is only good for one thing: screaming, crashing, cursing at dogs, and some more screaming. BASS loves this kind of sizzle and are exploiting it every chance they get.

I want Ike to get a win… one with no episodes, no breakdowns, no sizzle, just a confident, calm, cool, collected, single fist-pump win. Totally turn the expectation of sizzle onto its head and disappoint Captain Sizzle and his TV production staff in much the same way Cliff Pace was a huge sizzle let down at the Classic.

Randy Howell

In 60th? This is much lower than we’re used to seeing him and this actually represents a pretty good bump up from where he was a week ago. He doesn’t always get in the spotlight, but he’s definitely not a “scroll down” kind of guy either.

Matt Herren

Matt Herren sits in 77th. Has he cashed a check this year? Yes, actually. He just barely snagged his second $10,000 at the Alabama River, sneaking in at 5oth place. Contrast this to last season when he cashed seven checks! That won’t be possible this year. It’s been rough for him.

Timmy Horton and Stephen Browning

Some of these guys down below 70th or so don’t seem to belong there. They are better anglers than what their AOY standings currently show. It just goes to show you that it doesn’t matter how good you are, you can blink and end up in “scroll-down” territory.

For instance, take Timmy Horton… He’s in 84th place. Stephen Browning sits in 85th. That is pretty deep into scroll down territory for a couple guys who know how to win tournaments and cut checks. There are still three tournaments left, though.

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Does anything about this season surprise you? What do you notice? Are there any irregularities to add?

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As he drives to the lake, he plays out scenarios in his mind of what he hopes to experience. He envisions those perfect cast moments when everthing lines up. He can almost see it… almost feel it… He’s lost in the moment. Whoops!… he almost passed his turn. That little brown “boat ramp” sign is easy to miss.

It’s time. He steps out of his truck, takes a deep breath, and allows the sights and sounds of the lakeside dawn to permeate his senses and invigorate his soul. As he unfastens the trailer tie-downs, the ascending sun peeks over the horizon, illuminating a pink and orange sky from which a still visible moon suspends. He looks up and is almost caught off guard by the sight. The day is already worth it and he’s not even on the water yet.

The fisherman hits the water with a sense of spiritual enlivenment he hasn’t felt in a long time. He fishes the best way he knows how for the next 9 hours, eventually catching a dozen or so keepers. His best five weight went around 15 pounds, bolstered by a grumpy stump-dwelling 5-pounder that crushed a buzzbait early in the day. Catching that fish was a thrill!

It was a good day for the hypothetical fisherman in this story and he has every reason to feel good about it.

BUT…

But he’s not happy. By the time he returned home, his fulfillment turned into feelings of defeat and jealousy.

Why?

Because on the way home, a buddy called him and went on and on about how he “heard they caught ‘em good” on some other lake, how it took 30lbs to win on Lake Onfirenow. He was told of the 30lb bag needed to make the Top 10 on far away Lake Bamarigville and the 35lb bag that won it.

And just like that… every positive feeling he had about his day’s experience on Lake Honeyhole disappeared. All of the sudden it wasn’t good enough. All of those reports of huge weights from other world renown lakes desensitizes us to our own experiences.

Desensitization

Does this kind of thing ever happen to you?  If we’re not careful, we get to where we don’t value our 15-20lb days anymore.  We act as if we don’t have anything to feel good about when we fail to catch astronomical, near mythical, sized limits.

We forget about those little moments, the gorgeous scenery, the fulfillment of the greater experience.  We place all our value on how our best five stacked up next to somebody else’s best five.  Often times we’re comparing ourselves to people we’ve never met, strangers, and characters in unconfirmed stories that are often half true rumors.

Here’s the thing… we live in the “information age” and we’re always flooded with accounts about some guy who caught a huge limit of fish on some other lake hundreds of miles away. It leads to the sin of coveting. Yes, that’s right… you can covet thy neighbor’s fish!!

It’s perfectly natural to always want to catch more and bigger fish, but don’t let that ruin the taste of our own little victories along the way!  Don’t let it block out the glory of your own little moments and discount their value to the greater overall experience.  Don’t let it turn your attention away from the little lessons you learned and the skill-honing experiences you had.

It never fails… we’ll always end up hearing about some unnamed member of the bridge people community who miraculously caught an 11 pounder on the chicken liver he plunked into the rock crevices while using his heavily oxidized three ounce egg sinker and 30# test red Cajun line spooled up to half capacity (from previously breaking line off 20 times the day before). We’ll always hear about the guy who caught 25lb from shore on a crappie jig just 20 yards from the ramp where you launched!  Stuff like this just happens sometimes and it can be a downer if what you did, in all your seriousness and skill, didn’t measure up that day.

Take this fishing tip to heart… Don’t let this kind of stuff get you down.  There is always somebody, somewhere, catching more and bigger fish! Don’t let your ego get too delicate to the point that your mood is negatively affected because you were “beat” by somebody else.  Remember, you are in a different scenario that hugely varies from one lake to the other. It can even vary greatly between both ends of the same lake!

Over time, we catch so many fish, over and over again, that we lose sight on how awesome it truly is. It’s pretty easy to catch a 14-15″ bass and not think twice about it, but however routine it begins to feel, let us not forget about what is actually going on and how special it is!

What we’re really doing!!

Think about it… we are creatively delivering various configurations of wire, metal, plastic, lead, wood, fiberglass, tungsten, rubber, etc… into a relatively foreign underwater world for the purpose of convincing another life form to alter its behavior in such a way that they end up in our hands, dangling from their lower jaw. It’s pretty remarkable. Think about the amount of influence you wield over God’s creation!! Never underestimate the true marvel of this!

Perspective

Don’t become desensitized to the point that you take your experiences for granted! Remember, not every lake can put out 30-40 pound limits. Not every lake is loaded with 5-6lb bass. Sometimes that 5lb grumpy stump-dweller you catch on a buzzbait near that tempting laydown is just as big of an accomplishment as some of these mega-sized sacks we hear about. Sometimes it’s harder to catch your 15lb than it was for the “big timer” guys to catch their 35lb. It’s all relative! Stay positive and wait your turn! It will come if you stick with it! Keep fishing your Lake Honeyhole and cherish the perfect cast moments you experience. Appreciate those 15lb limits and those “fun-sized” keepers. Do everything you can to learn from them. One day, you’ll end up on a place like Okeechobee or Falcon and your big day will come!

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FishStrong always calls it like it is… So, in that tradition, allow me to congratulate BASS for the great footage they shot on the West Point Lake episode of Bassmaster. It REALLY made me want to go fishing.

Instead of relying on manufactured sizzle and hype, the sizzle was natural and legit.  The whole episode was very educational too.  The scenes, colors, and camera angles they captured were very cool.  Their illustrations — something that can easily be corny and full of sizzle — are actually pretty cool and functional from an educational perspective.

As a side note, it was cool to see the footage of Chris Zaldain throwing that big swimbait.  I know Matt Peters of Southern Trout Eaters would appreciate that.

So, the time has come to plainly say it…

BASS has a better TV show than FLW Outdoors.  

There, I said it.  Pretty sure I’m not alone here.

You’d think with all of FLW’s Walmart and team deal sponsor money (amounts that would probably surprise most of you), FLW would have stepped it up by now. It’s not that FLW’s show has poor content, it’s just a little stale and conventional.  I have seen some improvement, but it still has a ways to go.  FLW does have a great emcee, though.  Jason Harper and Chris Jones do a good job.  Personally, the contrived sizzle of BASS’s Canadian comedian doesn’t do it for me. Like reading a Don Barone article…

I can.

Do.

Without it.

One last word…  I love watching Skeet Reese win.  There’s just something about the way Skeet reacts that is cool.  He celebrates intensely without being tacky or appearing cocky. You can almost feel his sense of fulfillment.  He wins like a man.   The only advice I can offer him is to reject the sizzle of being fed a Diet Mountain Dew to drink while sitting on the hot seat, lest he shorten his lifespan.

I anticipate some killer footage on next week’s bassmaster.  The Alabama River should offer some great scenery.

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