The Bassmaster Classic is the SuperBowl equivalent for power bass fishing, so what would this tournament look like from a Hobie Mirage Pro ANgler fishing kayak? 2003 winner and consistent top-ten finisher Mike Iaconelli didn’t even blink at this question. Those in attendance are mostly long-time outdoor writers. They aren’t much for goofy questions. I might have broken the convention when I sauntered up to Mike on the eve of the biggest tournament of the year to ask him, straight-faced, to consider something out of left field.
“If you had to fish this year’s Bassmaster Classic using the Hobie Mirage Pro Angler on the top of your truck, how would you approach it?” I said. Ike didn’t so much as blink.
The 2003 Bassmaster Classic champion and perennial top ten finisher is a man accustomed to pressure. He’s known for intensity—Ike prefers the term passion—and had the courtesy to refrain from calling me crazy. Instead, he went for double instead of nothing, offering two approaches.
Smiling, he said that it would be great if he could launch anywhere on the Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees per kayak fishing custom. While everyone else was limited to launching from an improved boat ramp, Ike would be up a creek. Deep.
“It would put me [on] fish that nobody else could see,” he said.
What about that other approach? Let’s say he had to launch at Wolf Creek with the rest of the field, Ike on his PA, the rest of the field on their bass boats. What then? He’d go after the ‘retreads,’ the fish run over by the other anglers.
“Seventy five percent of the events on Grand Lake go out of Wolf Creek. There are a ton of fish right there and just like the backs of some of those other creeks, Wolf Creek has places you can’t access with a bass boat,” he said.
But did he think the platform would be limiting? After all, Ike is a major league expert at power fishing. Short answer: nope. Could he employ every one of his fish tricks?
“Absolutely,” he said, no problem, although he’d shake things up and go with longer sticks, and fish a braid-fluorocarbon line combo to get the maximum leverage possible on his hookset.
“For me, it’s a longer rod. One of my key kayak rods is a long spinning rod. They’re real hard to find,” he said, then added that it wouldn’t be a problem much longer. Brand new Michael Iaconelli kayak rods are on the way. More on that later.
