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Mike Iaconelli’s personality leads to conversations among bass fishing fans that drip of the love-hate relationships more frequently discussed in pro wrestling or NASCAR. Regardless of the cheers or jeers, what the former college honor student has accomplished as an angler is at the very least admirable – and mostly mind-boggling.
With
his 5th place finish at the Bassmaster
Elite on Lake Wheeler, Iaconelli has
now scored a Top 10 in 12 of the past
14 tournaments he’s fished. What
makes Wheeler’s performance so
impressive is that just one week
earlier he was disastrous at
Dardanelle, hinting that not only is
Ike human like the rest of us, but
that perhaps his glorious run had come
to a screeching halt. Not so, Ike,
climbed into his Tundra, likely
screamed in disgust a time or two,
steered it 6-hours east into northern
Alabama, and proceed to wack 45 pounds
at Lake Wheeler.
Ike was catching as many as 30 bass a day at Lake Wheeler. He was running and gunning, but remained focused on bluff walls that had a shallow ledge or lip rather than the totally vertical walls characteristic of most rocky bluffs. Mike drug a ½ ounce, green pumpkin, Berkley Gripper Finesse Jig on the ledges, or shelves, of the bluff walls. He would keep his boat in 20’ of water, and cast into the 6 – 10’ depths atop the ledges. When he encountered pockets along the bluffs, he would throw a shallow diving black and blue colored LaserLure around the points formed by the pockets.
Here’s the bottom line sports fans -- Ike has scored a Top 10 in 86% of the last 14 tournaments he’s fished – a stat that doesn’t require a college honor student to judge it as mind boggling. |
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