Mike Iaconelli got so dialed in on smallmouth during practice for the Mississippi River Elite Series that it was hard for him to transition away from them even after he noticed the sand drop pattern he was on had started to fade away as the water began to rise.
“It was one of those deals where you have a good practice and you can’t get away from doing it,” he said.
His diminishing pattern resulted in a 10-01 result on day 1 and that him mired in a tie for 79th.
“What happened was the water started coming up and I spent way too long doing it on day 1,” he said. “On day 2, I went to the smallies and they weren’t even biting at all. I changed gears and found new fish on days 2 and 3. I switched to largemouth and it really saved the event for me.”
He bounced back on a storm-riddled day 2 with 14-11 to move up to 40th, his sixth top-50 cut of the season.
“It was so miserable on Friday and it was raining so hard that I couldn’t get them to bite a topwater,” he added. “I caught them all on a swimjig.”
On Saturday, he stuck with his largemouth game plan and fired cast and cast with a frog through a unique grass flat to come up with 14-03 that moved him up to 22nd, an improvement of 57 spots over day 1.
“The largemouth deal was on flats with three key elements,” he said. “One was it had to have clean water. Two was a mix of vegetation that was light on eelgrass. It needed to have pads, coon tail or hydrilla. If it were choked with eelgrass, it’d be no good. And it needed a light flow. It couldn’t be a protected backwater or a flow through where the current was ripping.
“That was the magic. I found place like that on day 2 and I stomped it. On day 3, I caught one there and found two more like it.”
His rally helped him move him into 12th in points entering the Angler of the Year championship at Mille Lacs Lake this week.
“My goal was to go to Mille Lacs in good shape so I only needed to catch one keeper,” he said. “Now, my goal this week is to get into the top 10 in AOY points and I’ve put myself in position to achieve that goal.”
The Sunline Strong Performer, which focuses on the angler who makes the most significant single-day move in the standings at each tour-level event, is brought to you by the great people at Sunline.
