Not that I'm trying to start a mad scramble to the Washington Sportsmen's Show, but the rumor is that your first chance to buy the literally just-off-the-production-line, glue-and-paint-is-still-drying Mag Lip 3.5 is at the Sportco/Outdoor Emporium booth at the state fairgrounds in Puyallup.
"There's a lot of pent-up demand," Buzz Ramsey of Yakima Bait, makers of the steelhead plug, told me earlier this afternoon. "I've got guys calling me at home!"
Images he posted to a thread on Ifish show it was irresistible to at least two winter-runs caught by a pair of expert Northwest anglers in recent days.
SWANNY SHOWS OFF A MAG LIP 3.5-BITING WINTER-RUN. (SWANNY'S SPORT FISHING)
The 3.5 is a downsized version of the original Mag Lip which has taken off in recent years for spring Chinook and was formerly known as the M2-SP, a 41/2-inch-long banana-billed plug based off the slow-wobbling FlatFish design that dives to 20 feet. As for the 3.5, it can get down to 14 feet when flatlined.
"I thought the whole skip beat thing was going to give me a heart attack," wrote Fish Geek on Ifish after fishing the new plug with Ramsey on the Wilson. "I really really can't wait to try to fish them on the Columbia this summer. I think they are going to be a kick a$$ summer CR steelhead plug."
Ramsey, a regional fishing icon, says it should also work in clear water for salmon.
Art at Sportco's fishing counter in Fife just told me that the lures were taken over to the company's booth for sale at the sportsmen's show, and by my watch, gates opened one hour and 32 minutes ago now.
He didn't have pricing info, but on Yakima Bait's Web site, the larger 4.5s go for $7.40.
Ramsey says deliveries will begin soon to other tackle shops, and that more should also be available at the Pacific Northwest Sportsmen's Show in Portland Feb. 8-12.
