As the story goes: Dee Thomas, often called the Father of Flipping, used what he called an old Italian technique to win too many bass tournaments. The technique was to use a very long pole with a little very heavy line on the end to figure-eight a surface lure in bassy-looking spots. Tournament rules to kill that technique restricted poles to eight feet in length so Thomas developed flipping to compensate. Pitching developed from there. Survival folks might want to go Italian on this one?!