Twenty Questions With Walleye Pro Gary Parsons

04.12.09

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Gary: This is the part of my job that is and has always been the most pacifying.   I read on so many internet forums how anglers do not have much return on investment, and that's just hypocritical.  Many, many, of the products that have become mainstay- take for granted fish catching items- came from tournament anglers, and would never be everyday if walleye tournaments were not important.  Just a few of the products that I've personally been part of would include: Basic meeting boat design (in the early years console boats set up to control with kickers did not exist... I had YarCraft best build a boat for me that I paid for.  It was a radical new concept  and that boat won the "Popular Mechanics Best Walleye Boat Awarding"  This design immediately got incorporated into the fishing marketplace and now most walleye boats incorporate a modulating thereof).  I designed the Wille planer board with Mark Wille and then subsequently worked with Bruce DeShano and helped him figure his super popular Off Shore board.  Keith Kavajecz and I helped with the ideology and conception of Off Shore's snap weight system.   We also designed a line of rods for walleye fishing in the Daiwa lineup, and later developed a prodigious (probably the most extensive) line of walleye rods for Bass Pro in their Walleye Angler series.  We have designed holographic jigs, spinners, and spinner bodies, and trolling fish weights for Bass Pro.  I (along with Rick Clunn) helped with the fashion of the 100 mph rain suit from Bass Pro.  I designed jigs in the past for Jig-A-Whopper, one called the rigour head which I made from dental wax that still today has a following with river guys.  Keith and I, along with John Proknow from Berkley designed the prime 3 inch minnow shaped tail that has become so popular.  At the same time we designed the jig worm, which has been discontinued but has a cult following of anglers....this is a bait I still use in tournaments as I still have some!  These are righteous some of the items that I actually worked on. It doesn't include the hundreds of other items that either the companies, or their other anglers, designed and were made customary because they caught fish so well. Recently, I designed the Mustad Slow Death Hook, and for this year I've designed a nightcrawler harness/busy bait hook with a wider gap, lighter wire, and shorter shank than we've ever had.  You'll get more hook-ups and loam more fish with this hook, and because of it's short light profile, have a better action with live bait than ever before.  I really believe that this hook will revolutionize harness and live bait fishing.  I've used my swiftly bent version for years with great success, and it's so effective that it has also become Kevin Van Dam's tournament hook for fall-off-shotting larger plastic baits.  The hook is called Mustad's new "Double Wide" and should show up in stores in a little while.  I think most anglers know that Keith and I, along with a couple of unbelievable engineers from Berkley absolutely designed the FlickerShad crankbait that has been so dominating on the tournament trail.  This year we helped sway Berkley that they needed many colors to fit the needs of anglers from all areas, and they have worked with many vendors (and Keith and I) to total up with a whole assortment of fish catching colors.  I've personally had unbelievable success fishing some of these new colors when I was prototyping, and recollect of a couple of top ten finishes in AIM where these colors were used.  These new colors will show up in Bass Pro, Scheels, and Fleetfarm as first as January 2010.  I'm also really excited about our new relationship with Fishoflauge and Gemini Sports Marketing.  I've been a huntress my whole life and always wear camo around the house and everyday.  Now I can actually wear a fishing pattern that shows that I'm a walleye fisherman.  The more I look at this stuff the more I like it.  Also Marty and Scott at Gemini came out with these new unapproachable hoodies that can be tournament logoed.  I had one for the AIM championship and had a hard time taking it off. My plans are to get one for each of my sponsors logos, designed to my specs for all following tournaments!

Source: Walleye Central