As anglers we all want to be remembered for something. We want to put our names on moments and wins that put permanent memories in the minds of fans — or create a clip that’s used in Bassmaster videos for yeas to come. But tournament moments aren’t the only place we can leave our mark. We can also leave a mark on the industry with products.
I’m very fortunate to work with Ark Fishing International and Louie Zhang, the owner. I work with a great team, guys like Randall Tharp, Brandon Cobb, Jonathon Kelley, Bill Lowen and others. We’ve worked together on some projects that have delivered great baits and rods and reels. I was able to have some input on the Gravity Reels and the Outlaw Topwater walking bait. But for the past year and a half, I’ve been working on my own signature series of rods and my own swim jig with Ark.
First of all, I’m humbled to be able to work on projects like this — I only dreamed of having products with my name on them when I first thought about fishing for a living. Now that the projects are completed — in the case of my swim jig — and the rods are nearing completion, I’m still humbled. I learned a lot about the process.
There’s a lot more to these projects than I ever thought. The attention to detail on each model of my Wes Logan Rods was amazing, and I had no idea how much time there was between each step of the prototype process.
The Logan Signature Swim Jig was the easier of the two projects. We started with a hook and the head shape, and once that was done, we could go on to the other parts of the jig. The hook took the most effort because we already had a good head design and dual barb bait keeper on the Z Series swim jig. We needed to make it better for my style of swimming.
We modified the head to add a little keel and some rolling action, and we made a custom hook to give it a little bit more of a compact look. Next, we made angle adjustments to the weedguard to make sure the hookup ratio was right. After that, choosing colors was the longest part. The whole jig project took a few months.
The rods were a much more detailed project, and some of the models took almost a year and a half to get exactly where I wanted them. Every detail from the taper of the rod, where it bent and how much power each had, was key to making sure they did exactly what I wanted them to do.
Luckily, Louie is a master at rod building, and he has come up with some components that make up the foundation of each rod. So reel seats and grips were the easiest part. We also have a lot of high-quality rods in the whole Ark lineup, so I had a lot of actions to choose from and could use that as a basis for communicating with Louie and the engineers.
Each of the models took a minimum of three back-and-forths with the prototypes, but a couple of the models took longer than the others — especially my swim jig rod. It’s a 7-foot, 5-inch medium heavy, but I wanted all the length of a 7-foot, 6-inch rod in front of the reel. The shorter handle makes for easier roll casting and precision casting, so that took a little longer to get the balance right and make it exactly what I wanted it to be.
My Wes Logan Signature series will have cork handles and a really cool metallic red/maroon finish with the Ark reel seats and will feature rods built to my specs, around the way I fish. There will be at least 10 models, enough to have a rod for everything you need to fish. We’re in the final stages of development, so we’re not 100% sure of the price yet, but they will be affordable like everything else Ark produces.
This has been one of the coolest things I’ve been a part of in my career so far, and thought I’d share a little bit about the process. We’ve spent a lot of time on these projects, and I hope you’ll all give them a look.
