In the last couple of blogs we talked about winter bass lures. That’s great, up to a point. But, somewhere along the line it just gets too cold to fish and at some point the lakes freeze over in much of the country. But that doesn’t mean you have to stop getting better at your craft. You can still learn and practice. I can’t say how many videos in total are posted on the Internet but to give you a clue here at The BASS University we have something like a thousand of them, more or less. About 500 are […]
Last time we talked about jerkbaits, my favorite bait in the winter. This time I want to talk about my second favorite, the Rapala Rippin Rap Lipless Crankbait. But you should know this: Just because it’s my second favorite doesn’t mean I don’t use it all the time. In fact, when the water’s cold I never leave the dock without one tied on and ready to go. I fish this little jewel two ways. The first is with a traditional yo-yo type retrieve. I just cast it out, let it fall to the bottom and then make it lift and […]
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 just any jerkbait. We spent a lot of time matching size and figuring out how we wanted the bait to […]
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 cats are big and they are bad. A giant can grow to five feet in length and can weigh upwards […]
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 clean and even the buildings are clean. It’s an example of what can be done when everybody pitches in and […]
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 time, just more fish. I love keeping it real! Grass Carp They may not be all that exotic or pretty […]
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 but I’m guessing you’d like to hear a little more about exactly what we did and how we did it. […]
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 we had three species on our five day bucket list: Alligator Gar, Sea Trout and Bull Reds. Alligator Gar These […]
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 way it was at the time. The one about New York City fishing was especially fun for me. I grew […]
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 better. And, at the same time, I was having trouble with line twist. Even my braid started giving me trouble […]
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