What a Year! Heck.... What a Decade!

This first decade of the 21st century has been a doozy with the extraordinary highs of the boating industry followed by one of the biggest crashes the ever seen. Little bit of the legend of Icarus to it all, isn't there? Thankfully, GFM came under new ownership at the mid point of the decade, and the innovation and savvy Mark brought to the table has made us one of the real fighters in this fishin' game!

And we sure polished the decade off with a bang- 2009 was a biggie in the boating industry, in the bass world, and certainly at Gone Fishin’. Really, the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year race between Skeet Reese and Kevin Van Dam was enough to call it a year right then and there! California anglers did a lot to put our state on the map nationwide, and more locally there were shakeups throughout state tournament circuits with a huge changing of the guard in WON Bass and National Bass West expanding to include Northern California divisions. And that doesn't even graze the surface, I know.

Closer to home, Gone Fishin’ had a pretty incredible year- thanks to all of you who made it what it was! We lucked out getting to add Alan Fong from Fisherman’s Warehouse to our pro staff- the guy knows more about fish than most biologists I suspect. Along with himself, he brought his Al-E-Baby swimbaits, and we’ve been slayin’ ‘em ever since, suffice it to say! We also snapped up the opportunity to bring Triton bass boats aboard. Amazing, the fan club those boats have- it has been SUCH a pleasure getting to know the Triton crowd as well as fishing out of these awesome boats. We had an absolute blast at the Triton Owner’s Tournament in October (do NOT miss the next one), and had the honor of delivering the prize boat to Bill Scharton after he made the lucky draw the last day of the tournament.

Biggest and best though, we teamed up with Ultimate Bass Radio host, and Triton/Mercury pro, Kent Brown to bring Ultimate Bass University to the Gone Fishin’ showroom on a monthly basis. Thanks to Kent, GFM has jumped in with both feet and met some outstanding professional anglers, gotten to know a huge number of local bass aficionados, and had the best time in the world doing it. Along the way we all have seen an incredible array of styles, techniques, and philosophies in the effort to put more fish in the boat. We only started the University in May, but already, more people have been catching more fish, and GFM has been stocking all kinds of new gear to keep up with everyone.

Kent kicked our seminars off himself, but then he brought through some really outstanding local pros like Mark Lassagne, RJ Bennett, Bub Tosh (and yes, he brought those Paycheck Baits punching skirts into the tackle department mix), and most recently, Tony Franceschi. And let’s not forget the cast of characters in the audience- we had Dave Hudson and Jon DeVries bring big groups of teen anglers as special guests, we met CBAF’s Jerry Fournier and threw together a boat load of Toys for the Troops’ Kids (literally), we found out that Jody Only is a super writing talent in her Stockton Fishing Examiner column online, and have a whole modeling portfolio from Rio Linda Frank ready to go as soon as Mr. DeMille comes calling. The personalities we’ve seen have been great fun, but the knowledge we all came away with, and the new friendships forged hold the promise of a fruitful 2010 on the water. Here’s to 2010!!