Nowadays, it seems that everyone wants a tournament shirt and a wrapped boat. For those who are actually receiving cold hard cash for their sponsorship efforts, good for them. If it’s a free pair of sunglasses or a handful of lures, not so good. You see these guys at every major event or sports show, swaggering through the crowds wearing sublimated fishing jerseys as if there is a tournament underway in the parking lot. If they’re not working the show, it devalues the entire concept.

Trust me, I desperately wanted to stay off the umbrella rig controversy, really I did. That is, until I saw Mark Zona’s “Awesome Fishing Show” last week. Not only does Zona deliver an eminently watchable program, he puts a little reverse topspin on it. Instead of doing an umbrella rig show and inviting some company honk to sing its praises, he wrangles a guy who unabashedly hates the thing, Jeff Kriet.