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Wal-Mart Headquarters Bentonville, AR-April 7, 2010

Returned from Wal-Mart Headquarters in Bentonville, AR. last night. Arrived Monday afternoon and got in some bass fishing with Vince Minnick and Jeff Cope from Pure Fishing/Wal-Mart division. Caught some nice bass on Vince’s 500 acre private lake and had a great dinner at Fred’s in Bentonville. First thing Tuesday morning I met with eleven of the Pure Fishing(Berkley, Penn, Trilene, etc.) execs who handle the Wal-Mart fishing department in the US. Made great progress on ideas and tackle selection in the Wal-Mart stores here on the Gulf Coast. This is a very impressive Pure Fishing/Wal-Mart operation and I hope that my advice and angling knowledge was very helpful. Looking forward to continued involvement in the future! Trips Thursday through next Friday. Very nice to have a day off today!! See everyone soon. Please click an image to enlarge and view...

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Part 1-Big Trout at Redfish University-March 14, 2010

Guided Dr. Jay Erickson on this beautiful Sunday morning. Jay wanted to learn about the speckled trout near his home and then go catch some redfish in the backwaters in the coming weeks. The winds laid down for us and although we had a neap tide with very little water movement, we really stuck it to some big trout. In fact, we didn’t catch a speckled trout under 4 pounds and had a few fish a bit over 5 pounds. Fished some deeper potholes and had to trust that these fish were laying out the bottom. Caught a bunch and missed even more!  Also, landed a small redfish in the same area.  All fish taken on Berkley Gulp! Jerkshads rigged with Marsh Works jigheads. All fish handled with great care and released healthy. Part II in the coming weeks! Stay...

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Misty morning redfish and trout at Redfish University-March 12, 2010

Guided Mr. Bill Shan this morning. Bill is an accomplished angler from the north US to the Florida Keys. Bill was interested in learning some new areas for redfish trout. Start around 800am with misty, overcast conditions. Found plenty of trout and redfish immediately. Redfish were shallow and the trout were holding on uneven bottom with potholes. Ended up with 15-20 quality trout and some nice redfish including a 26″ fish and a few in the 4-5# range. All fish taken on Berkley Gulp! Jerkshads and 3″ Shrimp. All fish released. Looking forward to our second trip early next...

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Great early, slow late morning at Redfish University-March 6, 2010

Guided Dr. Roger Orth and Dr. Wayne Adkisson this morning. Started out early in the bay system looking for some redfish and speckled trout. Found nice concentrations of both immediately in 2-4′ of water. We absolutely hammered the speckled trout with mostly legal fish and some 3# fish mixed in. The redfish were a bit sluggish as they have been for the last few days but we did hook a few only to drop the hook. We totaled around 25 quality speckled trout and kept 10 for dinner at Roger’s this evening. The second part of the morning, we explored the surfline at the beach in search of pompano and redfish. Only saw a few fish, but it won’t be long as we had a south wind and clear water conditions. Just need more of the same. All fish taken on Gulp! Jerkshads and Marsh Works...

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“Big” Business then Pleasure at Redfish U.-February 25, 2010

Today I had a great meeting with Jeff Cope and Jay Geeding from Wal-Mart Headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Both gentlemen are Category Managers for Pure Fishing(Berkley, Penn, etc.) and asked me to assist in providing customers with a better saltwater selection and improving the overall direction of the fishing department in many stores. Started the morning at the Gulf Breeze Wal-Mart and I hope I offered some creative and thoughtful ideas to improve the saltwater choices in the fishing department. I thought I had a pretty firm grasp on the fishing industry but, like with fishing, there’s always much more to learn and I did. Well, this is where the productivity ended. After our meeting, we decided to jump on my boat and go stick a few redfish and trout. We weren’t too excited about the temps, wind, water clarity and bright blue skies but they insisted that I knew what I was doing and they just wanted to get out on the water. That’s exactly what we did. I honestly can’t remember the last time I(or clients) didn’t catch a single fish in ANY conditions!! The timing was classic as these guys aren’t exactly the company you want to have a below average trip with! Fished for two hours, got 3 decent bites and saw a handful of redfish but incredibly, they just wouldn’t pick up the bait. Did the earth counter-rotate today? Oh well, I know where not to go for tomorrow’s and Saturday’s...

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