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Although the Bassmaster Classic is often called “The Superbowl” of bassin’, there’s clearly many differences between fishing and football. And no contrast is more striking than this - Super Bowls are played indoors. Bass tournaments are contested in the elements.
And although this weekend’s Bassmaster Classic won’t exactly be held on frozen tundra, it will be cold on the tournament venue, Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees, near Tulsa, Okla. In fact, it could prove to be one of the coldest Classics on record.
And that would suit Rapala’s Classic contingent just fine. Thanks to cold weather and familiar conditions, Rapala pros Ott DeFoe, Brandon Palaniuk and Michael Iaconelli like their chances this week.
Unlike a majority of bass pros, Iaconelli and Palaniuk hail from north of the Mason Dixon line, New Jersey and Idaho, respectively. So they’ve fished in cold weather since they were kids.
Weather.com’s forecast for today, the first day of Classic competition, calls for a low of 21 degrees and a high of 39.
“That’s almost flip-flop weather,” said Palaniuk, only half-joking, in an interview recorded Friday, Feb. 15, after his first full day of Classic practice. In Idaho, he said, four or five inches of snow will sometimes pile up on a boat deck while winter fishing.
“Growing up with that, I think it’s easier for me to keep focus on the fishing, whereas some guys that haven’t dealt with that, they’re worrying about their hands being cold and things like that,” he said. “That can play with guys mentally.” Still, he noted, “you’re talking about 55 of the best anglers in the world, so I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to handle it just fine.”
Tulsa weather was cold during practice and will continue to be cold through the tournament, making for a “true winter-pattern” Classic, Iaconelli said in an interview this Tuesday. “And that’s going to make it tough. But it’s also going to be in my wheelhouse a little bit!” Having grown up fishing cold-water tournaments in New Jersey, Iaconelli has “a little bit of confidence” other anglers might not have.
DeFoe, despite living near Knoxville, Tenn. (where school’s cancelled after a one-inch snowfall) said cold weather won’t bother him much - or the fish.
“A cold-water tournament on a lake like this, the kind of temperatures here, it’s not a bad thing,” DeFoe said, talking on his mobile phone last Friday enroute to Tulsa. “These fish are used to it and they don’t mind to bite in it.”
Iaconelli, DeFoe and Palaniuk agreed that weather conditions in the week prior to the Classic’s launch today will determine which Rapala bait will most likely be the most effective during the tournament. Air temps in the days leading into the Classic will affect water temps during the competition.
In Palaniuk’s arsenal of baits will be Rapala DT-4’s in numerous colors, as well as a big tackle box full of Rapala’s new Scatter Raps. The baits were top secret until their public launch today at the Classic. Only Palaniuk, DeFoe and Iaconelli have them.
Among DeFoe’s go-to cold-water bass baits is the tight-wiggling Shad Rap. When the mercury dips, he throws No. 5 and No. 7 Shad Raps at gravel and chunk rock on sloping banks. All of are plentiful in Grand Lake, a rocky highland reservoir without any vegetation.
“Most of the people in the Classic will probably have a Shad Rap tied on,” DeFoe said. “I’ll probably be throwing it pretty heavily. I’ll probably have more tied on than anyone else.”
Iaconelli is likely to have Shad Raps tied on too, as well as DT-series baits in his Ike’s Custom Ink colors. And perhaps a Husky Jerk or two and some BX Swimmers.
“Rapala makes a bunch of amazing baits for that winter/pre-spawn pattern,” Iaconelli said. He likes the Shad Rap’s super-tight wobble, lack of a rattle and neutral action. “It’s probably the best wintertime crankbait.”
Iaconelli and DeFoe also have Scatter Raps, about which they were very enthusiastic.
“It’s a pretty special bait, and we’ve got access to them!” Iaconelli said. “That definitely gives you a little bit of a grin on your face, because potentially you have a big advantage.”
“They’re going to change people’s mindsets on what you can do with a bait,” DeFoe said. “They could really have a place in this event, no doubt.”
One of four baits in the new Scatter Rap line “will fit a really cold-water situation like we’re going to have in the Classic,” DeFoe said.
“If things play out, it definitely could give a few of us an advantage,” Palaniuk said.
“It’s not very often in the fishing world that something comes out that changes the way we fish, and the Scatter Rap is going to be one of those,” Iaconelli said. “This is going to be a game changer.”
Iaconelli: Old Shool vs. New School
Like the angler himself, Iaconelli’s cold-water Rapala arsenal is mash-up of Old School and New School.
“I’ve got some old Rapala standbys that are amazing in that cold-water period,” he said. They include No. 5 and No.7 Shad Raps and Husky Jerks. But at the same time, he’s embraced the DT and BX series baits.
“The DTs are sort of a combo of a Shad Rap and a traditional wider-wobble crankbait,” he explained. “A DT in some of the new Ike’s Custom Ink colors, you can really dial it in to what they’re eating which, out here on Grand, is shad.”
The muted colors of his Ike’s Custom Ink finishes could be a difference-maker, he said.
“If everybody else is throwing a standard size bait or a standard color, and you throw something... in a more neutral color, those little modifications can make the difference between winning and losing the Classic,” he said. “You’re talking about one extra big bite a day, or a half a pound difference. Those things can make the difference between winning and losing.”
How an angler performs in cold weather and patterns cold water will make a difference too.
“When I showed up here at Grand Lake, I saw that the water was in the low 40s, so that tells me that it’s a winter-time early pre-spawn bite,” Iaconelli said. “That, in itself, can eliminate a lot of things.”
Because he’s determined that the bass are not yet in a full-on pre-spawn mode, Iaconelli will review patterns that were successful in previous cold-water Classics, like the 2010 Lay Lake and 2008 Lake Hartwell events, which were “wintertime-type tournaments that set up similar to this lake.”
He can also draw on experience from his youth, fishing in cold-weather New Jersey club, federation and regional events. “They’re all tournaments that I’m going to draw on,” he said. “But the bottom line is that a bass in Oklahoma, and a bass in Florida, or Minneapolis, or in New Jersey, they’re all the same bass, because they go through seasonal patterns.”
Drawing on experience is more important in practice than during competition, however. “I use my practice days as a template, as a starting place, but ultimately, you have to just fish in the present, the moment,” Iaconelli explained. “That sounds like a very easy thing to do, but it’s actually really difficult.”
Palaniuk: Pre pre-spawn
Air temps hovered around 28 degrees when Palaniuk launched his boat on Grand Lake last Friday, the first day of Classic practice. Throughout the day, the weather improved to about the mid-fifties.
“It was actually pretty nice,” he said.
Back in Idaho, a “nice” day of winter fishing begins without breaking ice at the launch ramp in the morning.
“The guides in my rod tip were freezing up this morning, but that was about the only ice I saw,” Palaniuk said. “It’s not that cold.”
Not too cold to catch bass.
“Fishing back home, I learned you can still catch bass in 37, 38, 39-degree water, so to see temperatures in the mid to upper 40s doesn’t freak me out at all,” said Palaniuk, who placed 4th in his first-ever Classic after qualifying out of the B.A.S.S. Nation, a federation of mostly local-tournament anglers. The 2013 Classic will be his third in a row. All have been contested in February.
Having seen water temps ranging from 45 to 48 degrees in practice, Palaniuk expects Grand Lake’s bass to be in a “late winter, early, early pre-spawn” mood.
“I don’t consider them into a strong pre-spawn mode until the water temp starts getting into the low fifties,” he said. “That seems to be when things really start to turn on. And we’re just not quite there yet. I don’t see us getting there [during practice], but you never know, we are in Oklahoma, it seems like the weather changes every hour.”
Hear Mike Iaconelli and Brandon Palaniuk preview the Bassmaster Classic in the ”Fantasy Fishing Insider” podcast in the player below:
DeFoe: Rappin’ up in the cold
Judging from a record of fine finishes in previous February tournaments, DeFoe won’t likely struggle to make bass bite this weekend in cold conditions - 2nd in a 2006 FLW tournament; 5th in the 2012 Bassmaster Classic; 6th in a 2007 FLW derby; 18th in a 2009 FLW tournament; and 23rd in a 2008 FLW event.
“I didn’t really realize that was my track record in February, but I appreciate that!” DeFoe said. “I do like a pre-spawn tournament. I think that’s when I’m at my strongest.”
DeFoe will feel at home during the Classic not due to the weather, but rather the scenery. Grand Lake, he said, looks “almost exactly like what we’ve got in East Tennessee,” referencing Douglas and Cherokee lakes. “That’s definitely going to be a big plus for me.”
Like Grand, the fisheries DeFoe grew up on feature mostly rock and don’t have much vegetation. “We’ve got rock and mud and boat docks, and Grand’s got a lot of rocks and docks as well.”
Despite his record of success in chilly February tournaments, DeFoe would prefer to find bass closer to pre-spawn mode than winter mode. That could help nullify any home-field advantage of several local anglers that have much more experience on the lake, which he had never been on prior to last Friday.
“If there’s a warming trend and fish are pulling up on the bank, that kind of puts everybody in the same boat,” he said.
“If it does end up being a slightly deeper more offshore deal, it’s a lot more of a needle-in-a-haystack-looking kind of thing,” he added. “I like a strong pre-spawn, low-50-degree-type of tournament. That’s one thing I really, really like. But I don’t think it’s quite going to be that warm here.”
Hear Ott DeFoe preview the Bassmaster Classic in the ”Fantasy Fishing Insider” podcast in the player below:
Scatter Rap: more details
The new Scatter Rap baits, Palaniuk said, are “something completely new to the fishing world... A spin on an old standby.” They are available in four models, two of which he had tied on last Friday.
“I can guarantee you these fish had never seen them until today,” he said.
Asked if the new baits would be tied on again in the second day of practice, he went further.
“They’ll be tied on probably every day from here to the rest of the year!” he said.
DeFoe, who’s been dropping hints about the new bait on his Facebook fan page the last week or so, said a couple Scatter Rap models “could be really strong players here.” And what about during the rest of the season? “They’ve got one that will fit 50- to 60-degree water, or even warmer actually,” he said.
Iaconelli explained why the baits will work so well.
“Fish strike a bait based on the movement of the bait, that’s a fact,” he began, going on to estimate that 90 percent of his crankbait bites come after the bait has changed direction. “Over the years, we’ve had to figure out ways to do that on our own. The neat thing about this new concept bait that Rapala is releasing is that they’ve figured out a way to make this bait change direction on its own, the whole retrieve back to the boat.
“And that’s why these guys are grinning, and that’s why I’m grinning,” Iaconelli said further. “That movement, that hunting, that erratic searching movement is a trigger to get bass to bite. And the baits they’re coming out with will be able to do that on every cast during the whole retrieve - and that’s pretty special.”
Learn more about the Scatter Rap at Rapala.com.
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