I’m down on Lake Hartwell getting ready for the upcoming GEICO Bassmaster Classic. It’s one of the most rewarding — and boring — things I’ve done in a while. For the past two days my new rig hasn’t been above idle for more than a total of 30 minutes, and that might be generous. It’s probably closer to 15 minutes.
As best I can I’m trying to cover every inch of water. The lake’s down. I’m guessing about 10 feet. That’s not as low as back in 2008, the last time I was here, but it’s low enough to let me get a pretty good look at things. That’s really all I care about. I don’t even have a rod and reel on the deck. They’re still tucked away in my rod lockers.
What I’m doing is slowly covering everything I can. I never take my eyes off my electronics. It’s like staring at a 12-inch TV all day. I’m sure I look like a frog when I come in at dark.
The idea is to mark the stuff I might need in February. I do that by setting up my waypoint markers with a bunch of different shaped icons in different colors. One might represent rock piles, another brush piles, a third channels, a fourth ditches and so on. I even have different icons for sharp drops and gentle slopes.
I mark a lot of them on my paper maps and make written notes about the ones I think are the most interesting, too. There should be around 500 individual spots marked by the time I’m finished.
When I get back home I’ll sort and organize them into categories. I’ll be able to find what I need by type of structure, cover, depth and by location on the lake.
That’s super critical to the way I fish. Here’s why: When we start practicing for real just before the Classic, I’m not going to run around the lake fishing waypoints. I’ll do it just the opposite. I’ll go fishing, let the bass tell me what’s going on, and then see what my spots and my maps tell me.
If I catch a couple of winning size fish on rock piles, I’ll go immediately to my waypoint files and my maps. I’ll sort out my rock piles so that I know exactly where I want to fish when it counts. And, because they’re also sorted by location I can move from one end of the lake to the other and still fish the same kind of stuff if my first area gets crowded or someone’s on my spot.
That probably sounds like a lot of work and no fishing to some of you guys. (Actually, it sounds the same way to me.) But, this is a GEICO Bassmaster Classic, and I’m a professional angler. It’s not about catching fish this week. That won’t count. It’s about catching them the third week of February. That’s when it does count.
Let’s be honest about all of this. I want to move up nine places from my 10th place finish in 2008.
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter or visit his website, mikeiaconelli.com.
