BASSfest is like a party to me. It’s an opportunity to have some fun and to take the intensity out of some of what we do. It’s relaxing in many ways.
There are a lot of things I could mention but, frankly, they’ve all been mentioned in other columns and articles. I encourage you to read some of them, check out the schedule and attend. Take advantage of what B.A.S.S. has brought to our sport. This week’s a real chance to get some good information about bass fishing and the outdoors lifestyle.
For me, though, BASSfest has another attraction. It lets us mingle with our fans. I honestly love that part of this business. Other than winning tournaments it’s my favorite thing.
It’s amazing to me that, despite all of our differences as human beings, bass anglers have a lot of things in common. Someone once said that in the beginning anglers just want to catch fish, then they want to catch a lot of fish and finally they want to catch big fish. Get-togethers like this prove that’s true.
The cool thing is when anglers ask me the same kinds of questions I would have asked 20 years ago. It shows me that this sport is truly universal, that it brings together all sorts of people from very different worlds.
I’ll be around. Stop me and we’ll talk fishing.
For those of us who are fishing, however, there’s also a serious side. There’s a lot of money at stake and maybe a berth in next year’s Classic. Towards that end I stopped at Pickwick Lake for two days before I came here. The idea was to get into the swing of fishing ledges. Pickwick is probably the best place there is to do that.
Fishing every type of structure is different. To begin with, your electronics have to be set the way they need to be to take full advantage of what they offer and what the lake offers. I think I got that part done. After some practice I think I’ll be able to find the spot out on Kentucky Lake’s legendary ledges.
I also needed to tune my tackle and my presentations. You can do that under almost any circumstances, but it’s a lot more fun to do it when you can set the hook and fight a bass to the boat. You learn more, too.
Sometimes not setting the hook when you get a bite will tell you what’s going on, but when you do set the hook and actually look at how it penetrated there’s no guesswork. You know exactly what happened. You don’t have to guess about size, either. When she’s in the boat, you know.
I’m writing this before practice so I can’t tell you much about what’s going to happen in the tournament, but I can tell you that there’s probably going to be more than one way to catch the winning weight. And, with the quality of anglers who are fishing this one, that weight is likely to be really high.
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter or visit his website, mikeiaconelli.com.
