Norman Lures Sold to PRADCO

Text and Photo Originally Posted in Fishing Tackle Retail 

FORT SMITH, Ark. – PRADCO Outdoor Brands, a leading manufacturer and marketer of fishing and hunting brands and products, has acquired legendary fishing lure brand Norman Lures, formerly of Greenwood, Arkansas.

Dick and Holly Nethers of Fort Smith have owned Norman for the past 18 years and will remain involved in a consulting capacity. Under the Nethers’ leadership, Norman has continued a legacy of innovation and development with fishing lures and colors.

Norman Lures was founded by Bill Norman in the early 1960s. Some of Norman’s early creations are still being marketed and used to catch fish today. These include the DD22 and Deep Little N, which continue to be standards in deep-diving crank baits.

ICAST 2013 New Perfect 10 Smithwick Rogue jerkbait with Jason Christie a...

2013 ICAST we find the IBASSIN team in the Pradco booth with Jason Christie. This FLW Pro helped create the new Perfect 10 Smithwick Rogue jerkbait. Listen as he explains why this bait helped him almost with the Bassmaster Classic.

Top Selling Fishing Brands in America 2012

In 2012, the top brands include:

• Top rod brand: Shakespeare (10.0% of all purchases)
• Top reel brand: Shimano (21.1% of all purchases)
• Top combo brand: Shakespeare (18.3%of all purchases)
• Top fishing line brand: Berkley Trilene, PowerPro (each 11.2% of all purchases)
• Top hard bait brand: Rapala (23.5% of all purchases)
• Top soft bait brand: Berkley Gulp, Zoom (12.8%, 12.6% of all purchases)
• Top spinner bait brand: Strike King (18.5% of all purchases)
• Top jig brand: Strike King (7.6% of all purchases)
• Top hook brand: Gamakatsu (24.7% of all purchases)

Bass Tournament Winning Jig-and-Plastic Combos

By I.M. Bradley

How would you like to win more bass tournaments? If you answered “no,” then continue to fish the same lures and techniques you always do. Keep a closed mind. Never try anything new. By God, you caught a bass on a jig-and-pork in 1978, and that’s just the way it is!

 If you answered “yes,” however, keep reading because the secret of catching tournament winning stringers is going to be revealed.

OK, there is no secret. No magic lure, secret technique or expensive machine that drives bass into an insane feeding machine. However, the fact is that a jig with some kind of soft plastic as a trailer has been on the business end of more tournament-winning rigs than any other.

Winning major bass tournaments requires thorough preparation before and flawless execution during the event, as well has “giving them what they want.” Bassmaster Elite Series professional anglers Alton Jones and Edwin Evers know that along with having the right lure, each angler must make adjustments during each day to catch the biggest bag. These two anglers won nearly $1 million dollars on just three tournaments using a variation of that old jig-and-pork you (or your grandpa) caught a bass on back in the 1970s. Jones won the Bassmaster Classic in 2008 on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina; Evers won the Bassmaster Elite Series Citrus Slam Tournament on the St. Johns River and the PAA Series Tournament on Lake Norman, and all three tournaments were won with a jig.  

Crawfish imitations just seem to catch better numbers of bigger, quality bass. Another way of looking at it is that they eliminate the smaller bites, thus giving the bigger bass a better chance of getting on your line.