For an angler known for break dancing on his boat deck, perhaps it no surprise that Ike disco’ed his way to a Top 10 finish in the BassMaster Northern Open last month on New York’s Lake Oneida.

On the tournament’s final day, Ike burned a Disco Shad pattern Rapala DT 10 through schooling bass in 18 to 20 feet of water to weigh 15 pounds, 11 ounces and place sixth. That’s a bit of an odd-ball pattern, Ike acknowledged on the weigh-in stage.

“It’s one of the only times I throw a crankbait and purposely just try to run it through the level of the fish... ripping it through the school,” he explained. “[The DT 10] dives 10 foot, I’m in 20 foot of water, going through the zone of the bait and man, they ate that thing up.”

The suspending bass Ike caught on DT-10s in the Oneida Northern Open were feeding on schools of baitfish, which he located with his sonar unit.

“You don’t have to see the bass, just look for those balls of bait,” he advised. He found balls of both perch and shad.

In the Oneida Open’s first two days, Ike weighed limits of 15.13 and 15.6 pounds by drop-shotting with VMC Spin-Shot Hooks and Tungsten Drop Shot Weights.

“This week, I really dominated with smallmouth,” Iaconelli said on the weigh-in stage. “I tried to catch largemouth every day to upgrade to that winning spot, but it didn’t work. [But] the smallmouth fishing was phenomenal this week.”

Feider Flips Goo Bugs, drop-shots Probe Worms for 10th place
Rapala Pro Seth Feider flipped Trigger X Goo Bugs and drop-shotted Trigger X Probe Worms to place 10th in the Oneida Open, weighing bags of 14.15, 15.10 and 12 pounds.

“Seth, it seems like I’m seeing you all the time up here, cashing these bass checks,” said BassMaster Open Emcee Chris Bowes as Feider, a Minnesota native, brought his final-day limit to the stage.

Feider’s Oneida gameplan was similar to Ike’s - first catch a limit drop-shotting for smallies and then try to upgrade by flipping for big largemouth.

“The majority of the fish I weighed in were schooling smallmouth that came on a drop shot in about 18 feet of water,” Feider said. His best drop-shot bait was a green-pumpkin Trigger X Probe Worm rigged on a VMC Spin-Shot Hook above a VMC Tungsten Drop Shot Weight.

“Those smallies would come up and bust on the surface and let you know where they were at,” he explained. But few weighed more than 3 ½ pounds. “Once I’d got about a15-pound limit of those, I’d pick up the big flippin’ stick and try to catch a couple big largemouths.”

Feider caught kicker largemouth on the first and second day by punching shallow, floating grass mats with a green-pumpkin Goo Bug Texas rigged with a 4/0 VMC hook and ¾ oz. VMC tungsten weight. The matted grass, torn up by boat props, was floating near the shore in about 12 to 18 inches of water.

In 10th place when he launched on the third and final day, Feider decided to target big largemouth from the get-go.

“I kind of gambled on the last day,” he said. “I just tried fishing a bunch of new water and hoping to run into a couple of those great, big largemouth bites and do some moving up the leaderboard. But that didn’t work out for me. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, but I swung for the fence.”

For Iaconelli, Feider and Wheeler, a lot’s on the line in Erie Open
Ike and Feider, along with fellow Rapala pros Jacob Wheeler and Terry Baksay, are fishing on Lake Erie this week in the third and final BassMaster Northern Open. And a lot is on the line.

If Ike wins the Sept. 12-14 tournament, he’ll qualify for his 15th BassMaster Classic, the Super Bowl of bass fishing. If he does not win, he’ll have to win one of three remaining tournaments to qualify for a chance to repeat as BassMaster Classic champ (he won in 2003) and win the prestigious event’s $500,000 purse.

“I think I have a shot,” Ike wrote recently in his BassMaster.com column. “I’m not going to say that it’s a guarantee or anything, but I have a shot. I’m not just saying that. I honestly believe it.”

Feider is competing to qualify for the BassMaster Elite Series, which Ike dominated in the 2000s.

“I feel like if I manage a top-15, top-20 finish [on Erie], I’ll have a shot at making it to the Elites,” Feider said.

For Wheeler, the FLW Tour’s hottest young gun, qualifying for the BassMaster Elite Series would afford the opportunity to win a BassMaster Classic trophy to accompany his 2012 and 2013 Forrest Wood Cup championship and runner-up trophies.

“Winning the Forrest Wood Cup and then getting second this year, a BassMaster Classic title is weighing heavily on my mind right now,” Wheeler said. “If I have a solid finish [on Erie], I should be able to qualify for the Elites. And that would give me that option.”

Placing fifth or higher in Northern Open points would earn Wheeler and Feider an Elite Series invitation. Wheeler is in ninth place heading into the Erie event, the third and final Northern Open. Feider is in seventh.

“It’s looking good, I’m in the mix,” Feider said following his 10-place finish in last month’s in Northern Open on New York’s Lake Oneida.

Baksay, an FLW Tour veteran, is contention as well, sixth place in points heading into the Erie event. Ike tops the Northern Open standings, with 325 points. With 296 points, Feider trails Ike, Elite Series angler Randy Howell (3rd, 308 points) and FLW standouts Tracy Adams (2nd, 324 points), Jacob Powroznik (4th, 306 points), Justin Lucas (5th, 302 points) and Baksay (6th, 302 points). Wheeler has 287 points, right behind Kenneth Woods, in eighth place with 288 points.

If Ike and Howell finish in the top 5 in the points race, Wheeler, Feider and Baksay would need only to finish in the top 7 in points. Because Ike and Howell are already Elite Series anglers, their spots on the tour next season are guaranteed. Elite Series invites will go to the top five point-getters that are not already on the tour.

“My thought is, a solid finish [in the Erie Open] - I’m thinking 20th place or better - I’ll be in for sure,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler is not yet sure if he would continue fishing on the FLW Tour next season if he qualifies for the BassMaster Elite Series. A few anglers fish both tours simultaneously if the schedules allow.

“I’m not positive if I would fish both,” Wheeler said. “I would definitely like to try, but it would depend on my schedule. That’s a lot of tournaments. I would love to do it, and it’s probably the best time to do it, being 22, probably the best time to do it in my life.

“But at the same time, I have to be careful, because it is a business,” Wheeler said further. “If you don’t start focusing on the tournaments you have, you start losing your edge. You start forgeting sometimes what the next lake is... and you’re not prepared well enough for the event. I don’t want that to happen.... I’m not a hundred percent sure what I’m going to do, if I have that opportunity, but I want that option.”

Lake Erie Open gameplans
Ike is “especially excited” about the Lake Erie Open, he said in his column, and it’s easy to understand why - he’ll have a leg up on much of the competition, having recently fished on Erie in a late-August BassMaster Elite Series event. Although that tournament launched out of Detroit, Mich, on Lake St. Clair, Ike was one of many anglers that made long runs to fish on Lake Erie. Most of the top 12 finishers dropshotted for smallmouth on Erie. Ike finished 33rd.

A lot of what he learned in the St. Clair tournament will apply in the Erie Open, Ike said in his column. “It’s not like I’ll be starting practice from scratch or without any information whatsoever,” he explained. “And I love to smallmouth fish. It’s what I’ve done all of my life. I’m comfortable doing it.”

Unlike Ike, neither Feider nor Wheeler need win the Erie event to achieve their goal - they just need to finish well enough to jump up a couple spots in the standings.

“It’s not necessarily about winning this event,” Wheeler said. “I’d love to win it, but I’ve got to be careful at the same time. If I have got a spot I think I can go and catch 17 pounds on, and I have a spot that’s 20 miles away further that I think I can 22 pounds on, I might stop on my 17-pound spot and catch 17 pounds, and then go and worry about [winning] the tournament.”

Although Feider has never competed on Lake Erie previously, he said should be in his comfort zone there.

“I’m feeling good about it,” he said. “I know its going to be big water and covering a lot of water for small spots. I like drop-shotting, it’s full of big smallmouths, they should be biting. I’m ready.”

Feider planned to practice on the big water for at least five days shortly before the event. Unlike in the Elite Series, Open competitors are not restricted from practicing on the tournament fishery 30 days prior to the event.

“There’s a lot, a lot, a lot of water to cover,” Feider said. “I know I’ll spend a lot of time driving around looking for fish on the graph, and bait, little rises, and stuff like that.”

Wheeler said Erie will offer anglers two options: isolated big-fish spots, or closer numbers spots.

“Fishing isolated little rock piles, little high spots and stuff like that... you’re not going to get a lot of bites - there might be one bite per rock pile, or maybe not even that many,” he said. “You could have a chance of not even catching five that day.... But if you catch five on that isolated stuff, they’re going to be big.”

The other option, Wheeler said, is fishing wider, closer areas that hold big populations of mostly three-pound smallmouth with a few bigger ones here and there.

“Three-pounders sound like good fish, but those are small ones on Erie,” he cautioned. “Those are the ones you don’t want in your bag.... It’s really going to be all about decision-making in this tournament - leaving when you need to leave, staying when you need to stay.”

Wheeler said he’ll likely target his smallie spots by drop-shotting a Trigger X Probe Worm on size 1 VMC SpinShot Hook.

“That hook, it just catches those fish and you don’t lose them,” Wheeler said. While practicing on Erie, “I don’t remember one that I’ve lost,” he added, despite how smallies are prone to “going crazy and jumping” when you land them.

That’s because the points don’t bend on his VMC hooks.

“And that’s important,” Wheeler said. “I can’t have those points bowing over in tournament situations. And that’s the key to getting those fish in the boat is those sharp hooks.”

Ike spent Labor Day weekend practicing on Erie.

“It’s great to have the opportunity to launch out of Sandusky and fish the exact same waters we’ll be fishing in the tournament,” he said in his BassMaster.com column. “That makes getting ready a lot easier than if I had to mess around somewhere else.”

Ike hopes to have at least three successful patterns established when he launches in the Open Sept. 14.

“Less than that and you’re taking a chance on changing conditions,” he explained. “More than that gets to be too much.”

You can bet he’ll have Rapala baits and VMC hooks and terminal tackle tied on, as he did when he placed sixth in the Oneida Open.

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