Dubiel Gives Anglers What They Want

By Pete Robbins

No matter where they go, Scott Dubiel shows up. Somehow, some way, he figures out where they are and then silently glides into town.

They approach him sheepishly in the morning, one by one, looking for the good stuff. If they really need it bad, they visit him again in the afternoon. In fact, just a quick phone call and he can get you the goods pretty much 24/7.

He's not dishing out anything illegal, although some of his product is so effective that the competition wishes it would be banned. Dubiel is a Field Services Manager for Pure Fishing, and it's his job to make sure that the company's sponsored pros win. When they win - and it's often - he wins too. By all accounts, his mantle should be full.

On its most basic level, his task is to be at the tournament site, get his company's pros the Pure Fishing products they need and blend into the scenery. But in reality, he's a willing gofer, jack of all trades, and "enabler."

For example, at this year's Elite Series event at Falcon Lake, on the first day of practice Kelly Jordon realized that his Navionics chip didn't cover the Mexican side of the lake. Dubiel ran to the tackle shop, got Jordon a map and then hightailed it forty miles up the road to Laredo to get the last remaining complete chip in the area.

Last year at the California Delta, Pete Thliveros needed a particular product and wanted it ASAP. Dubiel remembered that he'd seen some in a local tackle shop, so rather than wait for the overnight shipment to arrive, he decided to go incognito at the retail establishment for his angler. When other anglers heard that he was headed to the store, he got "orders" for a variety of other products, and he fulfilled every one of them.

"Most of them are thoroughly prepared. They look into the crystal ball at the beginning of the year and try to figure out what they'll need, but sometimes they don't foresee everything," he said.

He's an outside-the-box thinker, so while he's sure always to have an ample supply of his top products (e.g., four-inch green pumpkin Chigger Craws, 1,800 packs and counting so far this year), he'll also bring some items outside the pros' typical arsenals.

"For the Texas swing, I brought some six and seven inch Powerbait Mullets, pre-rigged swimbaits. (The fishermen) might not have thought to use them, but they did pretty well. I also gave them some Stren tinted fluorocarbon in heavy strengths for tying leaders to braided line."

He's there in the good times (like when your thumbs are bleeding for flipping up too many Chigger Craw bass), but Dubiel is also a welcome sight when things aren't going so well. When the boats of Charlie Hartley and Glenn Delong were burglarized earlier this year in Florida, he quickly restocked the pilfered rods, reels, line and baits. "I had some of the rods that Charlie needed with me, but for the others I just made a call to the office and they were there the next day," he explained.

Even if those who've been victimized or those with their hands out are not Pure Fishing pros, Dubiel said he'll "take the high road" and help the competition.

But like any good supplier, he'll give his customers a taste in exchange for a couple of things - he wants to get them hooked and he needs their advice to develop better product.

"The biggest piece of my daily interactions is the gathering of information," he said. "We want to get prototypes in their hands. We're always in the process of testing new colors and new baits. We take our time. We don't just launch them to market immediately."

When it comes tournament time, no one within a hundred miles, not even the eventual winners, is likely to be as tuned into the bite as Dubiel, even though he rarely makes a cast. Just by observing which products and categories of products are moving most quickly, he can watch a preferred pattern develop from the bank.

"When we went to Texas, we were thinking seven-inch Sinkworms, Hollow Belly swimbaits and big muskie rods. But in Del Rio the bite got tough and a bunch of guys were dropshotting, so we went through a ton of six-inch handpours."

If the bass pros are long-haul truckers who also fish, then Dubiel isn't far off. He logs a lot of miles on his company truck, and even when he chooses to fly, it's not always easy. "The hardest place to travel to is Zapata, Texas. It's not just a hop, skip and a jump from anywhere."

With that said, he gets to see some of the most beautiful parts of the country, although his favorites are usually determined by logistical realities rather than scenery: "I like Oneida because everyone stays in the same place and usually they all use the same ramp," he said. That means less scrambling, less searching for unmarked dirt roads, and more time to convene and converse with his constituents.

And when his boys win, he knows exactly where to find them. He gets to them first and squeezes out every bit of info he can. Just as Dubiel himself is not hard to find, neither are his pro staffers - they're usually in the winner's circle.

To purchase the Green Pumpkin Berkley Chigger Craw as mentioned in this article click here.