Fishhound Magazine 010 | Page 19

each model to maintain brand integrity. “It was always my intention to put lures with Sébile quality and performance into the hands of anglers on a modest budget,” he says. “After Pure Fishing acquired my company, I was able to develop this line!” Launching with a lipless crankbaits (Vibe Machine and Lipless Seeker), minnow-style jerkbaits (Bull Minnow and Star Shiner) and crankbaits (Squarebill Sunfish, Racer Crank, and Bull Crank), he added a topwater walking bait (Flat Belly Walker), jointed minnow bait (Swingtail Minnow) and hollow body frog (Pivot Frog) last year. The Pivot Frog demonstrates Sébile’s insistence that every lure that carries his name deliver at least one quality feature the angler will find nowhere else. In place of the dual cradle-style hook on most frogs today, it features a weighted retractable hook that allows the bait to rest at the leg-down angle of a real frog and raises free of the frog body as the fish strikes, elevating chances of successful hookup significantly. Being Sebile! His massive creative output raises the question: How does a man who spends so much time with business and product development find the time to fish 64 countries and hundreds of days each year? For one thing, he does not seem to place a high priority on sleep. He will carry on lengthy conversations about fishing into the wee hours of morning, a laptop computer or smartphone before him as he conducts a relentless flow of business. As single-minded as he can be on the water, he fills boat jaunts between fishing holes and lulls in action with productive thought or correspondence. He lasted one 10-day stay in Russia as a celebrity participant in that nation’s biggest freshwater fishing tournament, Zander Troffee, on roughly two hours of sleep per night. Despite his many records and avid pursuit of predator species, he still revels in the experience of adding a new name to his species log, often adding background and details of a catch of a nondescript species as if he had just secured another hotly pursued record. In Sébile’s world, it’s not enough to catch fish and break records if you can’t find enchantment in everyday fishing experience. And every species is welcome to play a role in his everyday drama! Although tournaments dedicated to single species have done much to advance angling know-how and participation, he sees a downside to the common retreat into singlespecies camps. “I have always loved bass, but it is sad that so many fishermen focus on just one species l