Jay Kumar

Ike Uses Boat as Smallie Blocker

(Bassmaster.com photo)

Landing smallies…is great! It’s half the fun of fishing for them ol’ brown fish – except in a tourney, when it can be the most stressful part of the day.

Mike Iaconelli (in this article) says he uses his boat to cut down on smallie jump-offs:

I use the boat as a landing aide. For me that style developed over the years. What I noticed, especially smallmouth fishing, is that when you get those smallmouth on, they go crazy.

You’d always lose a lot when that fish was jumping or with their super-hard surges. But when I’d get that fish next to or against the hull of the boat it does two things. One, it actually slows the fish down a bit – I guess he feels trapped; he has less water to run around in. The other thing is it stops that fish from jumping. When you’ve got that big smallmouth on and he gets the urge to jump but he looks up and there’s the side of your hull, he doesn’t want to hit his head.

Now I’m actually using the side of my boat as a trap, as a wall. I’m using the boat to calm the fish down, to stop it from jumping and ultimately when I get the fish worn down enough, when I get the fish close enough in, I’m using it as a surface to pin the fish.

Interesting, eh? I’m sure he’s not the only one who does this – do you? Honestly I’d be a bit chicken to try it in case I the fish jumped at the boat and launched the bait at me. Gonna have to watch how Ike does it.

5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. Jason Bryant

    July 25, 2011 at 4:24 pm

    I’ve heard Steve Kennedy talk about the positive aspects of “pinning” fish to the boat for landing purposes. Never heard of anyone actually using the boat to intimidate fish into not jumping, though.

    The pros literally think of everything. I’ve sat in on 30-minute conversations about which was the best way to set the hook depending on which way your line was moving. Funny thing is, nobody ever agrees.

  2. Chad Keogh

    July 25, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    I use a net. Works for me.

    • Flip 'N' Pitch

      July 25, 2011 at 10:13 pm

      Just in case you may not know: the Bassmaster Elites are specifically forbidden by rule from using a net. I carry one but hardly ever use it as I honestly feel it gets in the way and takes my focus off of fighting/landing the fish. When I’m fishing as a non-boater, I really don’t care for being asked to drop everything I’m doing to “get the net, get the net, get the net!”. Land the dang fish yourself!

      • Chad Keogh

        July 25, 2011 at 10:41 pm

        I knew. I just think it’s a stupid rule that causes the fish to be unessecarily over-stressed and increases the liklihood that the fish is lost at the last second.

  3. Ronald J. Lindner

    July 26, 2011 at 10:32 am

    just got through doing this all last week

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