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A Classic Reflection from a Class Act…. 2017 Bassmaster Classic
My Dad made his living as a construction worker. Vacation days and expendable income didn’t come easy.
But in the summer of 1990, when a bass fishing obsessed kid begged his parents to take him to the Bassmaster Classic in Richmond, Virginia – they did.
We had a great time.
Actually … a Life changing time.
So the next summer, there was no doubt we’d go back to the Classic. It was in Baltimore – and my mentor, childhood hero, and a former groomsman in my wedding – Ken Cook – became the 1991 Bassmaster Classic Champion.
This afternoon – I got credentials to my 19th Classic as a fishing industry marketing dude, and then I walked across the street to the hotel sports bar for a late lunch.
I ordered a Miller Lite – that’s what Dad drank around the house growin up. And then I called the landline 1,345 miles away at the House That Built Me.
Dad answered.
I said, “Dad, I just wanna take a minute to thank you. I just got credentials to my 19th Bassmaster Classic – and I’m certain I’d have never become a part of the fishing industry if you and Mom hadn’t agreed to take me to that first Classic as a fan back in 1990.”
Dad will turn a spry 81-years-old this weekend.
And still, the best piece of advice he ever gave me was this – “I Don’t Care What You Do for a Living, Just Promise Me You’ll Do Something You Love.”
“To everyone who helped pave my way. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here today. To all my friends, the girls, the broken hearts. All the critics, cynics and doubters. Y’all know who you are. Mom and Dad, and all your prayers. And those looking down from up there – I Didn’t Get Here Alone.” – Kenny Chesney
2017 Bassmaster Classic by the Numbers
JL Marine invites you to visit Booth #1401 during the Bassmaster Classic Outdoor Expo. The expo is March 24th–26th at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, TX. Come chat with our Pros and check out exciting new Power-Pole products and apparel.
The 2017 Bassmaster Classic on Lake Conroe should be a record breaker. Here are some records, trends and milestones to watch for:
1 – Family Affair – Alton Jones, Sr., the first Classic winner rigged with a Power-Pole shallow water anchor in 2008, will compete in his 18th Classic against Alton Jones Jr. competing in his first.
1 – Brothers First – If Bobby Lane captures this Classic, he and Chris Lane (2012) would be the first Classic Champion Brothers ever. Good luck Bobby!
1 – Father/Son – If Alton Jr. wins, he and Alton Sr. would become only the second Father/Son Classic Champions. Guido and Dion Hibdon won in 1980 and 1997.
1 – Unique Qualifier – Ryan Lavigne is the first non-boater to qualify for the Classic as a boater by winning the Bass Nation Championship on Lake Conroe in 2016.
5 – Proud Texans – Nearly 10% of the field (5 of 52) – Alton Jones Sr., Alton Jones Jr., Todd Faircloth, Takahiro Omori, and Keith Combs get to compete in their home state of Texas.
8 – Power-Pole equipped Classic Champions in the past nine years. Let’s make it 9 out of 10!
12 – Former Classic Champions will compete at Lake Conroe. They’ll be rigged with 24 Power-Pole shallow water anchors. Almost doesn’t seem fair.
44 – Classic competitor boats equipped with 88 Power-Pole anchors. Once again, the odds are in our favor.
3 Qualifiers Identify 3 Classic Surprises For Fans
After three official days of practice, young Carhartt College Champ John Garrett, along with veteran pros Mike Iaconelli and Shaw Grigsby were asked what three things about this Bassmaster Classic might surprise fans the most.
John Garrett
— It’s difficult to get a lot of bites here, but when you get a bite, it can be a big one.
— The lake is gonna fish really small. They’ll be a lot of us in the same area.
— How rough the water is, because of all the bass boat and pleasure boat traffic, and the sea walls along the shoreline don’t allow the waves to ever break, they just wash back and forth.
Mike Iaconelli
— How few bites per day most guys will get.
— You’ll actually see spotted bass weighed-in, even though the legal minimum length is 16 inches.
— Even though it’s spring, and you think of bass being shallow this time of year – they’ll be a lot of fish caught out deep too.
Shaw Grigsby
— That the 16” length is gonna be a game changer. I know it’s Texas, and everything is bigger – but it’s still not easy to catch a limit of bass over 16” – so you could see guys take a ‘zero’ at the Classic.
— How rough this lake is because of the boat traffic and breaker walls. The waves were so big, I never went more than 25 mph in practice.
— If we get hungry, there’s everything from McDonald’s to sushi we can pull up to and eat. (Note: That’s a joke, anglers aren’t allowed out of their boats during competition unless there’s an emergency – but there are a ton of boat-friendly eateries along Conroe’s shoreline.)
Iaconelli: I Need this Day
Mike Iaconelli notched three Top 10 finishes on Lake Conroe during three Toyota Texas Bass Classic events in recent years. Still, he was a bit of a stressed-out mess amid a 1-hour fog delay on the final official practice day for the 2017 Bassmaster Classic, on the Southeast Texas reservoir he knows so well.
“I need this day!” Iaconelli confided in me as I walked past him on the wooden pier he and 51 of the best anglers in the world had their boats tied-up to.
“It’s springtime, things are changing every day, and I don’t feel like I’ve totally figured out the puzzle yet,” says the passionate New Jersey pro.
His nervousness isn’t a reflection of his lack of effort or preparedness. He visited Conroe in December on a solo scouting mission, and then, like all 52 Classic qualifiers, had three long days of official practice this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“Things have changed since Sunday, we’ve had cooler nights, fish are in all phases of the spawn here, they’re constantly moving between shallow and deep water, and nothing I accomplished here in those three Toyota Texas Bass Classic events really matters at all – zero actually – this is spring time – those were autumn events,” Iaconelli insists.
Don’t believe him? Then chew on the fact he has no GPS waypoints saved from those previous top finishes on Conroe.
“I don’t save waypoints from old events. You gotta start fresh, especially when the seasons are so different,” says Iaconelli.
More mind-boggling, is the fact he caught a bass bigger than 8-pounds during every single day of each of those three previous tournaments – yet still, no waypoints.
And that’s the mentality that separates weekend warriors from world champions. Amateurs fish history. Returning to ‘spots’ where they caught ‘em before – despite the season or conditions.
Pros like Iaconelli are driven to fish in the moment – even despite incredible past success.
“The only things I can take from my past experiences here, are things like lure color and maybe a general area of the lake – but specific spots where I caught ‘em in the past have zero to do with this week,” emphasizes the 2003 Bassmaster Classic Champion.
“I break the life cycle of a bass into four seasons – winter, spring, summer and fall,” he says. “This is spring, and there’s no greater time of change for a bass each day than right now – that’s why I have eight casting reels and four spinning reels on the deck. I’m trying it all,” illustrated Iaconelli.
“I’ve got a lot to figure out today,” he says.
By 8:00 a.m., much to “Ike’s” appreciation, tournament director Trip Weldon announced the fog was clearing, and conditions were becoming safe enough to begin the final official practice day of the 2017 Bassmaster Classic on Lake Conroe.
Swindle: Conroe Will Be a Texas-Sized Test
Amid a Facebook Live post Monday night, reigning Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year Gerald Swindle contemplated aloud, “If everything’s bigger in Texas, then maybe the shrimp here could be the size of squirrels.”
Squirrel-sized shrimp – the outcome of Swindle’s famous humor, blended with his sometimes-bizarre creative thinking.
But while all the talk leading into this 2017 Bassmaster Classic has been about records being broken – Swindle’s not sure the 23-pounds per day that VanDam averaged to win in New Orleans in 2011, is truly in jeopardy here.
Fishing Pressure – “The boat traffic here is as intense as anywhere we’ve ever competed,” says Swindle.
While he’s competed on Conroe in four previous Toyota Texas Bass Classics, those were autumn events, when fishing pressure was far less.
A “Big Bass” tournament already had 900 people fishing on Conroe earlier this month. And while this lake is hugely popular for bass fishing, add-in all the pleasure boat traffic between its seawalls, and it’s understandable the largemouth are likely to be a bit more fickle in March than October.
“It took 27 pounds to win a team event here the other day, but I’ve got a feeling some of those fish may have come from spawning beds, and honestly there’s just not much clear water here to focus on catching spawning fish for three days,” says Swindle.
Fat Singles Versus Big Schools – While Swindle says there are bass in all three phases of the spawn right now; the likelihood of finding an offshore mega-school is a long shot.
“This lake has never been a place with numerous schools of big fish – it’s got some giant bass in it – but it’s not like the Tennessee River where several guys can locate a school that might have a giant limit of fish in it,” he explains.
Worth noting is the 16” minimum length limit on Conroe which not only increases the challenge of catching a keeper-sized bass, but obviously increases the average weight of a 5-bass limit compared to most reservoirs B.A.S.S. visits where a 14” minimum length limit is more common.
5 Lures for 5 Fish Each Day – When asked to name five lures fans could expect to see most of the 52 competitors using this week, Swindle promptly rattled off the following as though you had asked for his phone number: ChatterBait, Spinnerbait, Jigs, Strike King Series 5 crankbaits, and a weightless Senko.
Finally, We’re Not Freezing – For years the Bassmaster Classic was a summertime event, but in 2006, it was moved to the February-March timeframe, and that’s brought frostbite threatening temperatures to venues like Tulsa, Oklahoma and Greenville, South Carolina.
It’s also brought a run of less than optimal performances for Swindle in the late winter derbies.
“I’ve qualified for 9 of the 11 Classics they’ve had in the winter, and if we’d have been dove hunting, I wouldn’t have cut a feather,” he says with self-depreciating humor.
“I’ve laid down a whole string of 26 and 27th place finishes, but finally I’ve got a Classic where I can feel comfortable enough to move around and make something happen,” he says.
“When it’s 15-degrees outside, and you’ve got hand warmers taped to the handles of your Quantum spinning rods, you’re just waiting on something good to happen,” says Swindle. “But when it’s 80-degrees outside, a guy like me feels like he can run around and make something good happen – and that’s a really big deal.”
“Nope, not gonna complain about the weather – that’s for sure,” says Swindle. “For the first time in years, you’ll actually be able to see who my sponsors are, because I won’t be dressed in long johns and covered up like an Eskimo.”
What Will it Take to Win? – “I’m gonna say if you average 20-pounds per day you could win,” says Swindle. Which is significantly less than what VanDam won with in New Orleans six years ago.
“There may be a 30-pound limit weighed-in here, and it just might be me – but you’re not gonna see those giant limits caught everyday.”
“I know this, I’m boat #1 at morning takeoff – and that counts for a lot here too,” grinned Swindle, who earned that top position as reigning Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year.
A shot at a 30-pound limit, shrimp the size of squirrels, and tall thermometers with high temps in the 80s – maybe everything is just a little bit bigger in Texas.