I guess today shouldn’t surprise me. I had a tough practice and I had a tough first day at the 2014 GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by Diet Mountain Dew and GoPro.
I’ll give you the details. I had a total of eight bites today. Two of them were short. Of the remaining six, I lost two. I’d guess they weighed about 4 pounds each. I saw one but never saw the other.
It’s frustrating to talk about it. I didn’t do anything wrong. They just came off. It happens. It’s fishing.
That left me with four fish in my livewell. They haven’t been officially weighed yet but BASSTrakk has me at 13 pounds, 8 ounces. That’s good for 30th place. (Actually, it’s not good, not even a little bit good. I’m just being polite.)
I’ve dug myself a nice big hole.
Some of the guys are saying the fishing will be better tomorrow. Maybe it’ll get better, for some of the other guys. They seem to have figured something out so if the water clears and warms it might help them. It probably won’t help me.
I’ve been getting between 5 and 10 bites a day. With what I’m doing, I don’t see that number growing much. It’s basically fixed. And with the way I’m fishing it’s likely that one or two of them will come unbuttoned.
Of course, my goal is to go out in the morning and bring a 30-pound sack to the scales. In reality that’ll only happen if I can catch a couple of honest-to-goodness toads tomorrow. They’re here so that might happen. It’s really a matter of following my own advice. Never give up!
I have to go. The Day 1 weigh-in is starting. After that I’ll head back to the house, take a hot shower, eat a little something and go to bed. Tomorrow is another day.
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter or visit his website, MikeIaconelli.com.
