Courtesy of Vance McCullough

 

ICAST is all about innovation.

So is Patrick Sebile.

The man has designed over 200 fishing lures, many anonymously for other companies, a handful for his namesake Sebile Lures.

The Magic Swimmer and the Flat Shad gained widespread popularity in bass fishing circles before Patrick sold his company to Pure Fishing a couple of years ago. He stayed on as a consultant for a while.

But creators gotta create.

Patrick has a new venture – A Band of Anglers(ABOA) – for which he has already developed dozens of designs.

Brian Anderson serves as President/CEO of the new venture. “We stopped at our attorney’s office and filed 13 patents. In one day!’” said Anderson. He spoke of Patrick Sebile’s pure genius, his energy and love for all things fishing and how Sebile has almost died at least twice in his pursuit of fish.

That passionate, relentless pursuit of piscatorial opponents has produced over 300 world records for Sebile who has visited 69 countries; caught fish in 68. “The 69^thcountry was The Vatican,” notes Anderson. The tiny city-state is landlocked without even a freshwater lake.

“But they have a goldfish pond,” says Sebile with a sly smile.

“That’s what I need,” says Anderson, “video of Patrick getting arrested with a pocket fisherman rod and reel trying to catch goldfish at The Vatican. Heck, given his personality, he’d have the Pope out there fishing with him.”

“It is all about the love of fishing,” shared Sebile in his thick accent that has not abated after two years of proud American citizenship. “Take this guy here,” he gestured toward Anderson. “He could be the worst at catching fish. Just terrible at casting and hooking fish, but if he has love for the sport, that’s all that matters. So, A Band Of Anglers is all about the love of fishing. If we share that, we are connected.”

In case anyone doubts Sebile’s love of the sport, I was on a trip with him in May. We met with a large group to have lunch on Pigeon Key, near Marathon, Fla. While others stood in line nearby to dig into a huge bowl of paella, Sebile casted one of his new creations – the Dartspin – along the shore. He promptly caught a barracuda.

Of all Sebile’s latest brainchildren, bass fishermen will be especially interested in the Dartspin.

There are several brands under the ABOA umbrella. Hyperlastics features lures, such as the Dartspin and some soon-to-be-revealed designs, all made of a super plastic known as Softough.

When I first saw the Dartspin I said, ‘bass fishermen have been quietly adding small spinner blades to soft plastics, such as the Senko for a while with great results. So, this is a sound concept’. “Yes”, said Anderson, “but these spinners won’t tear out, get slung out or otherwise lost, no matter how hard or long you fish them.”

As a demonstration two men played tug of war with a Dartspin, stretching it nearly two feet, and it was the split ring that eventually gave way, leaving one man with a blade in hand while the other held the lure body, tiny corkscrew still firmly locked in the Softough tail.

During testing one angler reportedly caught 148 bass on a single Dartspin.

The Softough Dartspin has held up to everything from giant tarpon to the aforementioned toothy barracuda. I’ve caught barracuda on it myself with no sign of wear nor tear afterward.

The ultra-new lure blurs the lines that once separated spinnerbaits from swimbaits. It may become your single best choice for blitzing shallow bass, especially in clear water environs.

No, the Dartspin doesn’t have any tournament pros endorsing its virtues – yet. It really is THAT new, and that’s why you want to be the first to show it to the bass on your home water.

It can be rigged a number of ways, including on jig heads for deep slow rolling applications, on a weedless EWG hook (belly-weighted models work best) even nose-hooked. They work well behind a swim jig. Chatterbait trailer, anyone? The race is on to see how versatile the Dartspin ultimately proves to be.

The Softough material has just enough rigidity to allow for the molding of a generous hook slot. This will readily expose the hook but it also makes these lures slightly less weedless than most soft plastics, probably about the same as most spinnerbaits – hence, my classification of the Dartspin as more of a spinnerbait than a soft plastic swimbait, although it could easily fall into both categories.

So that’s just one lure from the Hyperlastics family that anglers can search out and buy now by checking the dealer locator tab on the ABOA web site:  https://abandofanglers.com/pages/store-locator

We will see more at ICAST.

Not only will ABOA exhibit at ICAST, “We will have one of the biggest booths,” said Hai Truong, Social Media Manager for the aggressive new company.

We will also see offerings from the Engage Baits line that includes the Twitshad, a hard-bodied, slow-sinking, fast-rising lure that works similar to a fluke style soft plastic. While fishing a Twitshad, this writer caught a giant Jack Crevalle on the surface over 200 feet of water one day.

I went to Miami the next day, fished with Truong, and caught a 4-pound peacock bass that raced from unseen depths to outrun two others its size and inhale the lure.

By the way, you can fish with Truong too as he guides for peacocks in the Miami area. It’s a unique experience you won’t forget. – HaiTruongFishing on Instagram and Hai Truong on Facebook.

The Twitshad will catch bass. Again, be the first to fish it on your waters.

ABOA boasts other product lines such as Ocean Born that cater to saltwater casters and SpoolTek which should appeal to the big swimbait crowd.

Keep an eye on AnglersChannel.com next week as we bring you more from A Band Of Anglers and tons of other latest and greatest fish-catching technology from ICAST 2019 in Orlando!