Tournament News Powered By Lake Drive Marine
Friday, October 10, 2025
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Scum Frog Report
New Realistic Scum Frog Painted Trophy Series Meets Angler Demands
Discriminating anglers demand specific features in their quest for the best hollow-bodied frog.
They want their frogs to be soft, so they collapse the moment a bass strikes, yet durable to last through numerous fish catches. They seek a higher hook-up ratio due to accurate positioning of quality hooks and they want them to convey a lifelike appearance and move realistically across the water.
Scum Frog, which has been manufacturing hollow-bodied frogs seemingly forever, offers the highest quality components at a reasonable price in its upgraded Painted Trophy Series. Like the recently introduced Launch Series, the ALL NEW Trophy Series now features 10 new hand-designed colors in addition to the 11 original colors.
The Painted Trophy Series’ realistic color schemes mimic several different types of bass forage. Each color has been meticulously designed by award-winning, internationally renowned lure artist Andrew Gardner, a Scum Frog staffer.
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Daiwa Report
Daiwa Introduces Premium Spinning Reel
Daiwa has announced yet another significant breakthrough in spinning-reel technology with the Luvias LT. Whether you chase trout and salmon, inshore species or bass, the Luvias LT family is designed to offer the utmost in performance, longevity and versatility.
Daiwa's skilled product development team designed the new Luvias LT with top-of-the-line components, compounds and features. For starters, the Luvias LT features a lightweight one-piece body made from ZaionÆ, which collectively offers abundant rigidity, even under the pressure of massive fish.
It has a structural system used widely in military and boat building applications, whereby internal loads are supported through the external skin - think of symmetrical design of an egg. Daiwa embraces this design inventiveness in the new Luvias LT series, and moreover, incorporates advanced Zaion material to bolster overall performance of the structural system.
Zaion, a Daiwa exclusive, is a high-density carbon with anti-corrosion properties that is both lighter and as strong as most metals. Zaion's engineers set out to build a material that was as strong as metal but light as carbon. Conventional wisdom holds that an aluminum reel offers toughness, while polycarbonate is needed to make a light body and rotor. Zaion is a fusion of these two qualities. While ordinary carbon is made of nylon resin and carbon fibers at 20%, Zaion boasts twice the density of carbon fibers. The result is a unique material that is as strong and corrosive resistant and 50% lighter than aluminum.
Daiwa's proprietary Zaion compound is also used in the Luvias LT's Air Rotor and Air Bail system, too, winding line around the spool with silky precision. The reduced weight in the rotor section makes it infinitely easier to turn the handle, so anglers can focus on the lure and technique, not cranking the handle.
The Luvias LT also features a Magsealed body line and roller, tough Digigear, and Advanced Tournament Drag (ATD). Designed and manufactured in Japan, every part of this reel is truly maximized to offer anglers the best spinning reel performance they're ever experienced.
Magsealed means the Daiwa Luvias LT keeps spinning forever with nearly zero friction and without any special maintenance, while offering unmatched water resistance. It's a technology that benefits anyone who desires the longevity and smooth performance of a new reel. This is not just an improvement, but true innovation. This is what MAGSEALED is all about. By using this technology and space engineering, Daiwa has perfected the reel's water resistance and durability by blocking even micro-level impurities.
Digigear is digitally developed gearing for maximum performance and endurance. It smoothly and efficiently transmits the power of the handle directly to the rotor.
It's available in five sizes and gear ratios of 5.1:1 and 5.2:1. Suggested retail ranges from $349 to $389.
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Rapala Report
New Rap-V Blade Offers Anglers Jigging and Casting Versatility
Cast it. Jig it. Yo-Yo it. Twitch it. Rip it. Crank it. Grind it. Pop it. Snap it. Lift and drop it.
Wherever you fish.
Whenever you fish.
Regardless of what species you’re fishing for, the Rap-V Blade will catch it.
The “V” stands for maximum versatility. And it’s the most versatile fishing lure ever created by Rapala making it the multi-tool of fishing lures.
The new Rap-V Blade is the perfect balance of metal, plastic and Rapala expertise. This extremely versatile bait produces instant vibration on the lift or retrieve. It can be worked at any depth, from the shallows to deep water, with a wide range of techniques.
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Rapala Report
Shad Rap Continues As One of America’s Best Selling Lures
Ponder this for a moment: There are anglers today – some of the top pros in the country – who weren’t born when Rapala introduced a fishing lure that would revolutionize modern fishing.
Thirty-five years after the introduction of the hugely popular size Shad Rap No. 9, 38 years after its initial launch and the introduction of Shad Rap size No. 7 and 42 years after the first sketches of the new lure were penciled on paper in Finland, Rapala once again saw the Shad Rap as one of its top manufactured lures in 2019. Over 1 million units shipped in the US and Canada.
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Shimano Report
100 years in business.
It’s a great accomplishment for any company, and no matter the problems the world is currently facing, it still calls for some celebration and recognition. Leading up to its 100th anniversary in March 2021, Shimano Inc., the Sakai City, Japan-based parent company for Shimano North American Fishing, Inc., has activated a special teaser web site - https://www.shimano.com/en/100th/ - to commemorate the dreams of company founder Shozaburo Shimano and the products and technology it has brought to recreational fishing.
Within the web site and leading up to the launch of Shimano’s official centennial site on March 24, 2021, the company will showcase two products every month – both from its bicycle components operations and fishing tackle, to trace the history of innovation Shimano has brought to the market. Currently, on the fishing side, visitors to the web site can read about the Shimano DUX, the first fishing reel made by the company in 1970 and the start of its second pillar of business after bicycle components.
The site also introduces Shimano’s special 100th anniversary logo where the light green, blue and deep blue colors within it represent land, sky, and sea, all focused on Shimano’s mission: ‘To promote health and happiness through the enjoyment of nature and the world around us.’
The special web site allows anglers to view more than a hundred photos showing Shimano customers and Team members from around the world enjoying Shimano-brand fishing tackle and riding bicycles equipped with Shimano components. More will be added throughout the next year.