Gift Ideas from 2022 Elite Series Angler of the Year Brandon Palaniuk
Today Brandon Palaniuk has just about every piece of fishing gear necessary and possible, but it wasn’t always that way. I recall that when he accepted his first Angler of the Year trophy at the Night of Champions he mentioned that as a child his mom would only let him use one square of toilet paper at a time “because your butt isn’t big enough for two.”
So the kid – and I call him that fondly because the pro’s pro is now 35 years old – knows the value of a buck. One of his earliest fishing-related Christmas presents is still memorable today: “When I was really young, just starting out at 9 or 10 years old, the guy who got me started gave me a gift. He was probably just cleaning out his boat and grabbed every random thing he could find and threw it in a black garbage bag. That was the present. There might’ve been one worm left in the package, or a jig with 17 skirt stands and a rusty hook, but I thought it was the greatest thing ever.”
Today, though, while he’s still cost-conscious he’s also exceptionally picky about his tackle and other gear. Accordingly, here are four items he recommends as presents if you simply don’t know what to buy the bass angler in your life:
“This is the one item I use every day on the water, whether it’s in my boat or in a buddy’s boat. When it’s super-hot out you can drop a few ice cubes in and they’ll stay cold all day. When it’s cold out, it’ll keep your water from getting too cold or freezing. You also don’t end up with tons of useless plastic bottles everywhere.”
“If you’re tired of someone complaining about getting wet all the time, get them a Simm’s ProDry rain jacket and bibs. It’s the best rainsuit ever built. Yes, it’s costly, but over time it pays for itself.”
“This is the rod that I throw the most throughout the course of the season. It’s good for a little bit of everything. There are a million choices out there, and if you don’t want to have to ask what you need, you can be sure they will get plenty of use out of this.”
“For anyone who loves to be outdoors, you can find just about anything they’ll need at Midway USA. From shooting to camping to fishing, they have it.”
