OK, here’s the deal: I’m filming My World with Mike Iaconelli. My guest is Martin Truex Jr. We’re going to drive some fast cars and then try to catch a couple of big bass. Martin is the real deal. I’ve known him for some time. We’re friends. In the first part of the show he spends some time teaching me how to drive fast in go-karts indoors. And then, we went to the Airport Speedway in Maryland to do some dirt track driving. I had a blast. I can’t say I beat him on either track. But I did […]
Most of you know something about the chicken rig. Traditionally, the chicken rig was a weedless way to Neko rig a straight tail worm. I’m in love with doing that but I’ve expanded the concept to include one of the most effective and natural looking bass baits on the planet — the craw. We’ll start with the hook. My favorite, by far, is the VMC Finesse Neko hook. The thing I really like about it is that there are two pieces of heavy fluorocarbon line on the top of the shaft of the hook up towards the eye. That keeps […]
This is one technique I never wanted to give up to anyone, but you fellow bass-heads make all of this possible, so it’s only right that I let you in on one of my most effective cold water techniques. That is the Rapala Shallow Shad Rap. It’s the perfect crankbait for cold water conditions. It has a tight wiggle and no rattle. I do, however, modify it a little bit. First off, by cold water I mean anything from the middle 50-degree range on down. And, by little modifications I mean swapping out hooks and adding a split ring or […]
Here we go, guys. We all know that spring is almost here. That’s a good thing, but it also presents us with problems — wild weather and extreme conditions. On Monday it might be a picture-perfect day, but on Tuesday it’ll be spitting ice and snow. When that happens I reach for the one bait I know they’ll eat — a hair jig. I’m talking about when all of the standard finesse baits and techniques don’t get you even one bite. The thing is, though, about hair jigs is that no lure made has more small, seemingly insignificant differences to […]
Here we go: This is the last of my three-part series on heavy metal baits for wintertime fishing. It’s going to cover the venerable spoon. It’s a lure that’s been around for hundreds of years but it still catches bass. We’re not talking about just any spoon, though. It’s winter. The water is cold. I’m talking specifically about a flutter spoon. It’s the perfect imitation of a big dying baitfish. The one I like the best — it’s elongated, cupped and for the most part already tricked out — is the Molix Mike Iaconelli Lover Spoon. It comes in a […]
OK, so the water’s cold and the air is even colder. I don’t care. I want to go fishing. And, I want to catch some bass so I’m going to break out my jerkbait box. They’re one of my go-to baits for right now. But, I don’t carry just one size, shape or type. No, I carry a whole collection of them. The differences between them might be subtle, but they’re important. Let me say it again: Subtle differences are important in cold water. Don’t forget that! I carry at least three different ones for three different sets of conditions. […]
One of the best winter lures in the whole world is a suspending jerkbait. Now, when I’m talking about winter conditions. I’m talking about water temperatures below 50 degrees all the way down into the 30s. That’s right now in most of our country. I use two models depending on the depth of the water I’m fishing. In water that’s less than 8 feet deep I go with a short bill Rapala Shadow Rap. If the water’s deeper, maybe up to 15 feet, I’ll go with a long bill version of the same lure. They both have an internal, fixed […]
Hot weather, deep water?? Go with a crankbait.
This time we’re going to talk a little about tight lining an aspirin head jig. It’s a great way to use your electronics in cold weather to catch huge numbers of bass. Here’s how I do it: Cold water bass tend to suspend, and there’s no tougher bite than that. So what I do is move around likely spots watching my SONAR until I find a school of suspended bass. When I find them I drop a VMC Neon Moon Eye jig straight down off the bow of the boat. With quality electronics you can actually watch it drop down […]
I had another experience fishing the Upper Mississippi River that I want to talk to everyone about. It was late summer when it happened but I think it’ll be pretty much universal as long as there are bass back in really skinny water. There were some places in the backwaters and sloughs that were super shallow — I’m talking less than 2 feet of water — that were holding a good number of keeper bass. The thing was, though, that they were so choked with thin, slimy vegetation and drift that had washed into the water that it was hard […]