Here's the Kicker
Kelly Jones of Kicker Fish Bait Company has an eye for talent and innovation. His most notable national pro staff member is FLW Tour pro Cody Bird, but Jones also latched onto Elite Series supernova rookie Clark Reehm when Reehm was still fishing local events around Texas and Louisiana.
Perhaps he was attracted to Reehm's loquacious demeanor – after all, it was the rookie to whom Zona and Sanders referred to when they said: "We finally found someone who talks more than us."
Once you get Jones started, he too can go and go and go and go. Talk about his toad or his wacky worm or even his finesse worm (who gets excited about a finesse worm?) and he has a hundred good reasons why his is the best. He's as Texan as peach cobbler, two-stepping, Lone Star beer and beef barbecue, and the good folks at home know it. Even if they're sponsored by other companies, the proof is in the pudding and they all use his stuff.
"Last year, every circuit in Texas had a tournament won on my baits," he said.
He advertises in many of the major magazines, but that may be unnecessary effort. At the recent Toyota Texas Bass Classic, his booth space paid for itself when Brandon Brewer of Royse City, Texas came in, bought a pack of the Kicker Fish Weedless Wacky Worms (Watermelon/Red, in case you're curious), went right out on the lake and caught a 12 pound, 8 ounce pig.
Too bad Brewer wasn't eligible to fish the tournament. Florida's Bobby Lane left Texas with a new custom truck, along a pair of of Lucchese Boots and matching hat valued somewhere just slightly south of the GNP of most developing countries – and all he caught was a paltry 11 pounder.
Needless to say, by the end of the event, there wasn't a Watermelon/Red Kicker Fish worm for sale anywhere within the same area code as Lake Fork.
The big fish Brewer caught spent the rest of the tournament lounging in the hawg trough directly across from the Kicker Fish booth with nowhere to hide from the adoring masses. Too bad, because surely she was a bit embarrassed by her deformed snout, which was missing a sizeable chunk, perhaps due to an earlier run-in with another angler.
"There's your eight ounces," Jones said. "Otherwise she'd be thirteen and eligible for the Texas Share a Lunker program.
In a world of multinational conglomerates operating soft plastics companies, Jones is a one man show. Strike that – there are actually four humans working at his Texas "world headquarters," but still it's no MegaCorp assembly line. It's far closer to being a mom and pop operation. He may not be able to bring a product to market as quickly as the big boys, or produce as many thousands of bags of plastics each day, but his status as the anti-Goliath brings with it certain advantages.
"I have control over everything," he said. "I don't claim to be the smartest guy in the business, but I spend more time on the ground with the average fisherman and I know what he wants."
The advantage to the customer is also obvious: "They get more one-on-one interaction with me. If they call the office or send an email, they get to hear directly from me," he added.
Given his ultra-positive attitude, even his inability to bring a product to market in a matter of days is viewed as an advantage.
"When there's a hot bait, like the Basstrix or the Senko, the big guys can copy it and get it out immediately. A small company has to do something different, so we sit back, back off and let everybody do their thing. Then we find a way to make it our own."
If you look at his products, every one falls into a general category that already exists – toad, finesse worm, creature bait – but each is distinct in design and application from its forerunners.
Look at his Hole Shot finesse worm. As he makes abundantly clear, the straight tailed worm has existed for over half a century and he had to have one in his lineup, but "they wouldn't sell if it was just another Trick Worm." So he added a series of strategically-placed holes in the tail to allow it to float up from the bottom. Now it takes an act of Congress to get the tail down. On top of that, enterprising anglers figured out that it's possible to stick a Sharpie or a dipping dye pen into the holes and create multi-hued patterns not available in any other worm.
Does he have a Senko knock off, like virtually every other soft plastics manufacturer?
"I have too much respect for Gary (Yamamoto) to do that," he answered. "But I don't have to knock off the Senko. I was able to take the tail of the Senko, the part that gives it that great fluttering action, and combine it with a fluke type bait so it actually swims. You can throw it into the pool, lay your rod down, and in nine feet of water it'll swim forward twelve feet."
His Xplodin Toad is also from the "better mousetrap" department. He looked at the other toads on the market and realized that none of the others had the jointed legs that all frogs in the wild feature, so they didn't swim right. He fixed that problem and created a lure with the same realistic profile as the others, but which creates a bigger disturbance by pushing more water. Because the legs are segmented, it also is the only toad on the market that allows the use of a trailer hook.
During one FLW Tour event, Cody Bird's partner (a well-known pro sponsored by another company) missed the first two fish he enticed to hit his sponsor's toad, then switched to the Xplodin Toad at Bird's suggestion and landed 19 of the next 21 bass that hit. Now the Kicker Fish product is all he'll use in competition.
And what about his bread and butter bait, the Weedless Wacky Worm, the one that Mr. Brewer used to outdo 104 of the best bass pros in the world a few weeks back on Fork?
"That's the one that pays my mortgage," he said. Indeed, it's an idea so simple it's surprising that no one else came up with it first, but no one did, so all credit should go to Jones. At the midpoint of a straight worm, there's a vestigial tail molded perpendicular to the worm itself, just long enough to Texas rig it with a regular worm hook. It makes the worm weedless, and allows the use of a small bullet weight, which aids in getting it through vegetation or bushes and allows for a quicker fall in deeper water, without losing any of the killer action. It's also just about the most foolproof bait for any guide to hand his client.
At this point, Jones is just about out of breath. Someone get him a brown paper bag to breathe into. He hasn't even gotten to the Bird Dog or the Kicker Craw. He wants to tell you about the 14 pounder that Rick Turner caught in tournament competition at Amistad on one of his baits.
Just then the phone rings – it's Clark Reehm and he's on 'em at the Red River, flipping one of the Kicker Fish creations. They're both talking so fast, it's like they're in a different world or speaking a different language. At the very least, they've taken the language that others have developed and found a way to make it more expressive.
Look for them kicking it in the winner's circle.