Last week I said we’d talk about some new things but we’re going to Plan B. We’ll do the new stuff next week.
This time I want to begin by recognizing Greg Hackney as our Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year for 2014. He had the kind of season we all dream about and he deserved to win. Greg’s a fine angler and an even better man. He’ll represent our sport well. We should all take our hats off to him. It was definitely his time.
Congratulations, Greg!
Now, let’s move on to the Toyota tournament at Kentucky Lake last weekend. This was my second one and I have to say that they’re some of the most fun events I fish during the year. I hope they go on forever.
It’s a no entry fee event with a $5,000 purse so that makes it pretty nice, but that’s not why I like it so much. My attraction to it is that it’s a kind of gathering of like-minded people from around the country all of whom seem more interested in having a good time than they are in winning the tournament.
You see lots of father-son combinations, brother-brother combinations and lifelong friends all getting together for a weekend. That’s really what bass fishing should be about unless you’re fishing professionally. Then, of course, catching bass takes on a different meaning.
So anyway, it was a great event. I say well-done to Toyota and to everyone who fished it.
I experienced something else this past weekend that I think is important. Guess what guys, bass do not jump in your boat even when you think it’s fall!
On Kentucky Lake — one of the premier, world-class bass fisheries in our country — the fish are not yet in their fall feeding mode. They’re headed that way but they’re nowhere near being in the backs of the creeks and cuts. And, they most certainly are not biting anything that you throw at them.
My experience last weekend was that you could catch a few early in the morning on topwater, several others later on farther out from the bank on crankbaits and Carolina rigs and maybe one or two flipping a log on a flat if you could find one. It was the classic definition of what we (pros) call junk fishing.
It’s also the classic definition of what I call fishing the moment. You had to pick your times and your places and fish with whatever worked at the moment. If you did much of anything else, you’d be doomed.
No matter how good the lake or river we’re fishing if the bass are in a transition life can get tough. We’re going to have to work hard for our fish and forget about developing a true pattern.
There’s nothing wrong with that, though. Not every day has to be easy, and not every day has to have an obvious pattern that puts fish in the boat. If that were the case, most of us would get bored with fishing and go play golf. That’d be a heck of a thing, wouldn’t it?
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebookand Twitteror visit his website, mikeiaconelli.com.
