I had the opportunity to spend a couple hours at the Ultimate Fishing Show. Interesting as always.
I did get to see KVD talk. Pretty much his standard fare that I have seen him present before. Something I noticed from watching him was how fast/rapid/frequent he was jerking the jerkbait when doing that demo. I definitely don't do it that fast. I was also heartening to see him get a tangle on a spinning reel. His casting technique is so good, no splash, very accurate.
I also saw Gerry Gostenik talk about fishing for smallies on Lake St. Clair. I was really surprised to hear that his best bait for summer fishing on the big lake was a deep running crankbait, in 16-18 feet of water. He also liked jerkbaits, mostly Lucky Craft pointers. He also is advocating fluorocarbon for almost all applications. But at least he validated my experience of fluorocarbon breaking easily and losing lures after the line gets stressed from a backlash or tangle.
I picked up a new color tube from Xtreme Bass Tackle: "Great Lakes Perch". It's fantastic, green with flake on the top, white with flake on the bottom, and the tails are a yellow with orange flake. Awesome, I can't wait to try them out. I got 4" and drop shot size tubes.