Becky and I got back from vacation last Saturday and I decided to fish a Winter League tournament up here on Sunday. The air temperature was really cold and the water was in the low 40s. The bite was tough. Nevertheless, we won with four bites that put four bass in the livewell. They weighed 6.86 pounds. Here’s how we did it… We used what’s probably my favorite winter bass lure — a hard jerkbait. But, we didn’t fish with […]
Austin, Texas: Blue Cats, Guadalupe Bass and Smallmouth Buffalo
Austin, Texas, is one of the truly neat places we visited doing the show. There’s no doubt that the fishing there is fantastic but the city itself is equally fantastic. The music is really cool, the art scene is one of the best I’ve ever been around and if you don’t gain weight eating the barbecue, it’s your own fault. We targeted three species this time — blue cats, Guadalupe bass and smallmouth buffalo. Here’s the story… Blue Cats Blue […]
Taiwan: The Land of Aggressive Fish
In a lot of ways our trip to Taipei, Taiwan, was one of our best. It’s an amazing place. The culture is so different from ours that it’s striking. You can see and feel the magic the minute you step off the plane. I’d never been there before. And like I said, everything there was really neat but there was one thing that really stood out — it’s such a clean city. The streets are clean, the drainage ditches are […]
Miami’s Hot
Fishing Miami, Florida, was one of the most interesting and challenging fishing experiences of my life. As you know, we typically targetthree species for our shows. This time, however, we decided to double the challenge. We targeted three freshwater species — grass carp, peacock bass and Midas Cichlids — and then we went after three saltwater species — snook, sailfish and tarpon. But, just to keep things interesting we kept the same timeframe for our fishing. That’s right, no more […]
London Here I Come
Ok, so we’re in London, England, this time. This was the first time I’ve ever been there and I have to say that it’s awesome, really cool for a guy from Philadelphia. I’m going to go back in the near future and take Becky with me. There’s no doubt that she’ll like it as much as I do. Let’s talk fishing: Our targets are English Pike, Barbel and European Yellow Perch. You saw most of it on TV last night […]
New Orleans: It’s Special
This trip was really special. As you probably already know, I won the 2003 Bassmaster Classic on the Louisiana Delta. I won’t go so far as to say that it totally made my career but I will say that it’s a huge part of it. If you want to be considered one of the best, you need a Classic title. I will be forever grateful to New Orleans and the surroundingarea for mine. So anyway, when we arrived in New Orleans […]
Ike Targets New York City
OK, so hopefully everyone had a chance to watch the first episode of FISH MY CITY WITH MIKE IACONELLI on NAT GEO WILD last night. If you had as much fun watching it as I did making it, you had a ball. Here’s the thing about shows like that–they are real. We don’t fake film footage and we don’t cover over our mistakes or our struggles. We show it all, good and not-so-good. You get to experience fishing just the […]
Rigging a Drop Shot
I’ve been catching bass on a drop shot rig for years, and until a couple of years ago I always rigged it the same way. I tied a fluorocarbon leader to a braid main line and tied the hook somewhere down the leader. Then, I nose hooked my bait, or maybe hooded it in the middle, and went fishing. It worked. I caught my share but I was dissatisfied with my hooking percentage. I just felt like I could do […]
Smallmouth and Scent
All bass use a wide variety of their senses to find their prey, but smallmouth primarily use two — sight and smell. We’re going to save the sight part for another day. Right now I want to talk about scent. I’ll start by telling you that I never fish with a plastic bait that isn’t scented or to which I haven’t added scent. That’s an absolute rule of mine. Never means never, not ever. It wouldn’t make sense. I want […]
Frogs for Late Summer and Fall
When it comes to bass fishing there’s no better late summer and fall topwater bait than a frog, and there are no better frogs than the Molix Sneaky Frog and the Molix Supernato. The Sneaky Frog is a super good open water or sparse cover lure. It has a kind of elongated body and a center weight. Both of them combined let it walk in a smooth and sexy way, but without much forward movement. It’ll attract bass from deep water […]