Ike's tips for catching smallies from bald spots

Mike Iaconelli didn’t get the victory or Top 12 finish he wanted at the Bassmaster Elite Series Plano Championship Chase tournament on Lake St. Clair last August, but thanks to bald spots, he caught 47 pounds of smallmouth and hauled home $10,000.

No, Ike’s not referring to a lack of hair on his 41-year-old head, but instead, places on the bottom of the lake in 10 to 15 feet of water where the vegetation stops growing, and in turn leaves a very clean bottom.

“When you get to a lake like St. Clair, it’s so flat for miles across the bottom, that you have to pay real close attention to any little change on your sonar screen,” said the 2006 Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year.

“Sometimes that tiny change is represented by just 1 foot of depth, and sometimes it’s represented where the aquatic vegetation growing on the bottom stops all of the sudden to form an edge with a bald spot of sand and gravel,” explains Ike.

“The vegetation looks like a guy’s short spikey hair growing off the bottom of your sonar screen,” grins Ike. “Well, where the ‘hair’ stops and the bottom goes bald is where you want to start looking for smallmouth.”

Iaconelli finds the majority of these bald spots with his sonar, but also admits that sometimes he can spot them with his eyes because they look like 100- to 300-foot-long blue holes in contrast with the surrounding water.

Once he or his transducer have the bald spots located, he combs them with four primary lures. Admitting, like most Bassmaster Elite Series anglers in the August 2013 tournament, that a drop shot rig caught the majority of his fish.

Alan McGuckinIaconelli shows off two healthy Lake St. Clair smallies.“When the wind blew, and the fish were more aggressive, I could catch them with a 3/16-ounce tube on 6-pound fluorocarbon, or by cranking a Rapala DT10 or DT14,” said Ike. “But when the wind stopped blowing, the surface slicked off, and the bite got tougher – that’s when I had to use the either the traditional drop shot, or what I call the ‘Power Shot’ with a big 1/2-ounce weight.”

The “Power Shot” is a drop shot rig with highly oversized components.  Instead of 6-pound line on a spinning reel, Ike bumps up to 10-pound line on a baitcaster. Then, in place of a tiny hook and finesse worm, Ike uses a Berkley soft jerkbait on a large 4/0 worm hook. “I’m trying to get their attention with the Power Shot rig,” says Ike. “It’s like throwing a big 3/4 -ounce football jig for largemouth – when that big weight hits the bottom it’s like a cannonball – it creates a disturbance that they have to come investigate.”

No matter the lure, Ike stressed that none of the 47 pounds of smallmouth he brought to the scales came from within the vegetation. “No matter which of the four lures I used, I never fished right in the weeds. I always fished right on the edge of the weedline, or mostly, in the middle of the bald spot,” stressed Iaconelli.

This time, bald really was beautiful. Pretty like a $10,000 tournament paycheck.

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The key to catching more bass in fall

Fall is upon us. With longer nights and cold fronts, the leaves begin to turn, the waters cool and the fish move shallow. One predictable pattern this time of year is the migration of shad into the creeks ... and the resulting bass feeding frenzy!

Anglers can take advantage of this pattern to locate actively feeding bass and quickly fill a limit. Schools of bass are often easily found, and lipless crankbaits, soft plastic jerkbaits, spinnerbaits and topwaters will all catch them now.

But what is really going on with these shad? Why do they move into the creeks? What anglers observe is only part of the food chain dynamic. To understand it you have to closer look — or in this case smaller — to see what is driving the migration.

Shad are mostly filter feeders that eat primarily phytoplankton and zooplankton and cruise in huge schools, often traveling many miles in search of plankton-rich water. They roam the vast open areas looking for food. Early in the year, as rains and runoff bring nutrients into the lake, sunlight and warming water temperatures cause plankton blooms in the lake's open waters.

As summer gives way to fall, nutrients in the main lake are depleted and temperatures decline, putting a damper on plankton growth. In the shallow coves and creeks however, the last warm, sunny days can cause quick warm-ups, and the plankton can continue to bloom. Shad schools, which may include larger older fish from previous years and small juvenile shad that were spawned in late summer, migrate into the creeks in search of food.

This sudden influx of prey appeals to opportunistic bass. While they will usually not travel miles and miles following a school of shad, those that are resident in an area will certainly take advantage of the prey that swims into their home territory.

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