ESPN usually has some pretty good coverage of the annual ICAST trade show in the Outdoors section of their website. The Day 1 video recap outlines this year’s manufacturing trend of adapting successful hard bait designs into soft plastic versions.
http://espn.go.com/videohub/player/embed.swf
Here’s also a “sneak peek” of new products from all of the top brands (PDF download). Check out the 10″ plastic snake on page 10!
http://assets.espn.go.com/winnercomm/outdoors/bassmaster/pdf/FTR_2009_06_ICASTSnkPk.pdf