Palaniuk Likes Chances In Upcoming Stretch

By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

The past 3 weeks haven't been real enjoyable for Brandon Palaniuk, and the next 3 probably won't be a heck of a lot of fun, either. Sure, he gets to go to Las Vegas this week for the annual ICAST show, but his focus is a long way from blackjack tables, swimming pools and all-you-can-eat seafood buffets.

He's fixated on the smallmouth bass that live in the northernmost regions of the country – far, far away from the Nevada desert. When the calendar turns to August, he'll have four chances over a 6-week stretch to make up for his disastrous mistake last month in the Minnesota portion of the Mississippi River.

He can't wait to get started.

"This is the first time I've been home (to Idaho) in 6 months, but I wouldn't hesitate to leave tomorrow to go make it happen," he said last week. "I've got quite a bit of fire built up in me right now, and that's going to make me get out there and work even harder to figure things out in these last four events.

"I've got two (Bassmaster) Opens and two Elites all on northern waters, which I'm very comfortable with because of where I grew up, and my confidence level for finding and catching smallmouths is very high. I know it's tough to even get in position to win, let alone have as good of a shot as I did at the Mississippi, but I'm hoping that things will line up again."

What Might've Been

In all likelihood, Palaniuk would have a 2014 Bassmaster Classic berth sewn up and an additional $100,000 in his bank account if not for his culling violation at the Mississippi, which resulted in the disqualification of his tournament-best 19-03 bag on day 2. An outdated Minnesota regulation prohibits culling from a limit of bass on that state's portion of the river, and he'd erroneously assumed that he was still in Wisconsin waters when he tossed that 2-pounder overboard to swim freely once again.

Using the new Storm Arashi crankbait and the venerable Rapala DT6, he completely dominated the first half of the event. His giant day-2 stringer gave him a 6-pound lead over 2nd-place Aaron Martens and nearly a 7 1/2-pound edge over eventual winner Tommy Biffle.

"It's hard to say because you never know what might happen, but I totally believe I would've won that event," he said. "Things just felt right – it felt like Bull Shoals (where he won a 2012 Elite derby by almost 12 pounds) all over again.

"I was doing something different than anyone else and it seemed pretty easy to go out and catch 15 pounds. I was doing the right thing and I made that one mistake, but it wasn't a mistake that had anything to do with fishing ability."

That evening, as he was poring over a map of the river with B.A.S.S. officials, he came to the gut-wrenching realization of what he'd done.

"I told them I had culled in Minnesota – I wasn't going to lie about it. I knew one of the places I was fishing was in Minnesota, but at (the one in question) I believed the main river channel was the boundary line. It just happened to be that that one, instead of following the main channel, cuts an island and then runs down the east channel, and then cuts back into the main channel.

"I never looked at my GPS as far as the (state boundary) line. I was paying attention to the contour lines on the Navionics chip."

How it Came Together

Palaniuk had finished 59th at the Mississippi last year. He attributed that lackluster showing to his failure to adapt to changing conditions (in that case, rising water levels) and just fishing inefficiently overall.

"I got on some good smallmouth, but the higher water messed that bite up," he said. "I went there this time with a mindset to figure out something like that again, but maybe to stick with it a little bit more. Last year I felt like I gave up too soon.

"When I got up there for practice, it wasn't nearly as good. You couldn't just run anywhere and catch them. I caught a few good ones, but I wasn't catching a lot of them."

He settled on a plan to pursue hefty smallmouths (fish of at least 3 1/2 pounds) in the mornings, hoping to get at least three of those per day. Then, if he had to fill out his limit with run-of-the-mill largemouths, that'd still give him the 14 to 16 pounds that he figured he'd need to contend for the victory.

He boated two chunky bronzebacks at his first stop on day 1, and then added a couple of 4-pounders from a place he'd fished last year. His sack was rounded out by a 3 3/4-pound largemouth from the Black River that bit at about 2 o'clock.

"When I caught that one, I could hear (Elite Series emcee) Dave Mercer talking on the stage, getting ready for the weigh-in. I was only a couple hundred yards away. I never got more than 5 miles from the launch in either direction."

He took a 2 1/4-pound lead into day 2, which began with a weather delay. The lost time concerned him because he thought his action would be best in the early morning, but he had no problems getting bit once he made his first cast at about 8:20.

That initial stop was at the place he thought was in Wisconsin, but was actually a hundred yards or so across the Minnesota line.

"It was lights out. On my second cast I lost a 4-pounder and over the next 30 minutes I lost five bites that would've easily weighed 15 or 16 pounds.

"They just all came off. I changed some things to try to fix it, but that wasn't working. I decided to just stick with what I had and try to get them to eat it a little better."

After about an hour and a half, he relocated to a spot he'd tried without success the previous day and boated a 4-pounder on the Arashi Silent Square 3. The next stop was a place that featured four big boulders. The square-bill didn't run deep enough to be effective there, so he used the DT-6 to catch a 2 1/2-pounder, a 5 1/2 and a 4, along with several smaller fish.

With his four best fish combining to weigh about 15 pounds, he returned to his starting area. He caught two 3 1/2-pounders that both helped him – or so he thought at the time. As it turned out, the second one actually doomed him, as it resulted in his releasing a smaller specimen in the no-cull zone.

He said the same violation that DQd him would've occurred the previous day had he gotten more bites at that locale.

"I never had more than two fish in the livewell when I was there on day 1, so I never had the opportunity to cull. The way I look at it, it was just an honest mistake. But to me, with the B.A.S.S. rules saying that I could've brought six fish to the weigh-in and culled down to the limit and taken a 2-pound penalty, it just shows how goofy the no-cull rule is."

Notable

> Palaniuk's cranking setup consisted of a 7-foot medium-action Abu Garcia Veracity rod, an Abu Garcia Revo MGXtreme casting reel (7:1 ratio) and 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon line. The color of the Arashi Square 3 was black silver shad and the color of the Rapala DT6 was blueback herring.

> He said the Arashi was the biggest key to his back-to-back massive bags. "The strike zone was pretty small, and the bait's self-tuning (free-moving) line tie kept it in there longer. The current was really fast and most baits will kick out to the side in it, and by the time you get them back on track, they're already behind the fish. You can burn the Arashi as fast as you can move your hand and that line tie will put it right back on track if it hits something and gets kicked out. It'll range a little from side to side, but it'll never totally blow out."

> His upcoming schedule consists of the Oneida Lake Northern Open (Aug. 1-3), St. Lawrence River Elite Series (Aug. 8-11), Lake St. Clair Elite Series (Aug. 22-25) and Lake Erie Northern Open (Sept. 12-14).