Rapala DT Series – Ike's Fishing Blog

Top Four Bass Baits for May

May 5, 2023May 3, 2023Mike Iaconelli 0

May is really one of my favorite months of the year to fish for bass no matter where I find myself in the country. Depending on where you are, it’s either the late spring or the front side of the summer and that’s a terrific time to catch fish. Today I want to share with you four baits that never leave my boat in May. Two of them are primarily for north of the Mason-Dixon Line (from Virginia and Maryland on up) and two are for south of it (from the Carolinas on down to Texas and Florida). Actually, the […]

Prespawn Bass Fishing Techniques – Crankbaits

April 7, 2023April 6, 2023Mike Iaconelli 0

When bass are moving from their wintertime habitat toward the spawning grounds, a crankbait can be a great lure not just for numbers, but also for big fish. Those fat females are full of eggs and they’re feeding up to have the energy to reproduce. When I think of this time period – no matter where in the country you’re fishing – the water temperatures are still comparatively cold but warming and the fish are moving. Moving fish love a moving bait, and you have to cover water, so the crankbait is the perfect tool, but not just any crankbait […]

Top Four Bass Fishing Baits for March

March 24, 2023March 22, 2023Mike Iaconelli 0

When I think of the best months of the year for bass fishing, March is at the top of the list. Of course, the bass are doing different things in different parts of the country, but almost everywhere, they’re big and they’re biting. North of the Mason-Dixon Line – from Virginia on up – the bass are still in their pre-spawn movements. They’re coming shallow, closer to their spawning grounds, but not yet spawning. South of the line, March means spawning fish. They’ll have moved shallow, crashing the bank. Either they’re setting up on shallower cover or actually on the […]

The Ultimate Guide to Crankbait Fishing

November 18, 2022November 17, 2022Mike Iaconelli 0

When I look back at some of my greatest successes in my tournament career, a lot of them are directly attributable to crankbaits. Why are they so good? The biggest reason is their ability to get bites from fish that are feeding as well as fish that are not actively feeding. Sure, a lot of baits will produce “hunger bites,” but the ability to trigger reaction bites puts them in a different class. So what are we talking about when we use the term crankbait? It’s a lure, made of wood, plastic or resin, that has a bill that helps […]

The Rapala DT8

July 30, 2021August 1, 2021Mike Iaconelli 0

Finally, after 10 years I got what I wanted in the Rapala DT series of crankbaits. I’m talking about an 8 size. We’ve had a 4, 6, 10, 14, 16 and a 20. Now, the lineup is complete! For those of you who don’t know, the number designation of the baits tells you roughly how deep they’ll run, depending on line type, diameter and strength. DT stands for dives to. The thing is, though, there was always a gap between the DT6 and the DT10. That’s been fixed with a couple of design changes to make the DT8. First, we […]

My Sleeper Crankbait

June 30, 2017June 30, 2017Mike Iaconelli 0

Every so often I think about a lure that everyone who want’s to catch a bass should know about, and so it is with the David Fritts designed Rapala DT Thug. It’s a small balsa crankbait — 2-1/2 inches long with a weight of 3/8 of an ounce — that’ll dive to between 4 and 8 feet on a normal retrieve. It has a hard, wide wobble, is hand tuned and comes in 15 colors. I don’t care where you live or where you fish you can match the local forage with one of them. What really makes it special, […]

It’s About Changing Direction

March 17, 2017May 11, 2017Mike Iaconelli 0

Anybody who has followed my career and what I’ve said about crankbait fishing over the years knows that I always want to change direction with my crankbait as I wind it back to the boat. I can’t remember a time when I threw one out and just brought it back through open water. As far as I’m concerned that’s a wasted cast. There are a lot of ways to get a change of direction. You can move your rod tip left and right, or up and down. That’ll work. But, the easiest way is to just bang it into something. […]