As the New Year unfolds, I can’t help but think about the upcoming fishing season. That’s right — it’s cold, blustery and the lakes are getting some serious ice starting to form, but my mind is on the warmer days of spring. This is also a great time to start perusing the tackle shops.

Retailers are starting to get itchy about last year's product that is still sitting on their shelves. The back storage rooms are starting to fill up with the latest and greatest, and space needs to be made.

In the fishing industry, the buyers for all the major retail shops start filling their orders out in late summer or early fall. I know when I was selling fishing gear for a living, most of the manufacturers I represented wanted me to have all of my orders in within that time period. The very latest orders had to be in by Nov. 1.