By Steve Weisman

One of the many anticipated events of the fourth annual Okoboji Blue Water Festival scheduled for Saturday, August 10 is the fishing seminar at 11:30 a.m. Located under the Big Tent, this year’s seminar can best be described as “Seeing is Believing!”

Dan Spengler, senior bait development engineer for Pure Fishing will offer insight into the development process for Berkley hardbaits and terminal tackle such as jigs and how they are paired with Berkley’s soft baits. The seminar will provide information on product design, prototyping, lab and field testing, in addition to final product release to the anglers. Following the seminar, Spengler will invite those in attendance to join him at the dock on the shores of West Okoboji where he will offer presentation demonstrations for a variety Berkley lures.

One of Spengler’s goals is to help those in attendance understand the hardbait design process. “First, I will give a little background about how I got into the industry. It’s hard to believe but since I was hired, I’ve worked directly on over 70 Berkley hardbaits. Just last year, we designed, developed and released over 20 hardbaits alone.”

These will be Spengler’s seminar topics:

• Discuss behind-the-scenes steps in the concept and design process.
• Shape development and prototype testing in the lab. During this process, top pro anglers are brought in for their input.
• Field testing, taking the hardbait to the water. Testing in a variety of locations to determine if the product is right. Here, it all comes down to letting the fish tell the engineers if it is ready for market or not.
• Discuss crankbait fishing techniques
• Jerk Bait fishing with the Berkley Cutter
• Discuss terminal tackle such as jigs and how they are paired with Berkley’s soft baits
• Berkley Snap Jigs, a new way to fish jigs
• Panfishing with Berkley plastics
• Finesse fishing with applications around the Iowa Great Lakes
• Topwater fishing with Berkley Bullet Pop, Berkley Highjacker walking bait and Berkley Choppo

Seeing is believing! The final portion will be a how-to seminar, where Spengler will provide actual on-the-water casting techniques for fishing his favorite Berkley products.

“I am really looking forward to this opportunity. I hope that a lot of kids will attend. One of my life-long goals is to get as many kids interested in the sport of fishing as possible,” adds Spengler.

Spengler with a big nighttime walleye taken on a Berkley Shallow Cutter 90.