My 3 days as a Marshal....

[motocross269]

Spent the last 3 days Riding along as a Marshal on LSC...I drew Mike Iaconnelli, Rick Morris, and Greg Vinson.. All 3 great guys and all of them took the time to coach me on exactly what they were doing throughout the day.
I am not going to break down the specifics until the tournament is over but I will update this and give you a brief idea of the techniques and patterns that they used after tomorrow..

As far as Marshaling.....I had a pretty good time...Every thing from the Social dinner on through the weigh ins was pretty well organized and you got the feeling from everyone from the BASS staff to the Pros that they were glad that you where there and wanted you to be 100 percent involved....
It did get a little tiring riding along and watching someone else fish for 3 days....I think if I had to do it over I would ride along for 2 days and then follow in my boat for day 3...The Pros were great and tried to make you feel like it was a team effort but without a Rod in my hand It was a struggle.  One of the Pros is taking his buddy out fun fishing tomorrow and even invited me along but I have family commitments....The Pros treat their Marhals well because they like the Marshal system over having Co anglers...

I am going to go to the final weigh in tomorrow...Hope to see a bunch of you guys there..

[djkimmel]

Glad you gave a report on your experience. Tomorrow is the final day with the top 12 fishing. I thought the crowd was really good today. Pretty big and loud. I hope we get the same tomorrow.

Aaron Martens was surprised they brought his family in to witness his 2nd Angler of the Year title!

[Big dreams]

That is awesome, I think riding with Ike would have been a blast.  What kind of tips did he give you?

[gmetime24]

Sounds like a lot of fun. Watching Ike fish must have been an awesome experience!

[Dan]

My three days as a Marshal is coming up soon as well on my blog that I do. I can't wait to read about the experiences that other GLBers had. I know I had the ride of my life so far with Clifford Pirch on Day 2. We went beyond Pelee. The ride from Metro to Colchester was interesting, but I've done that before. The ride across that open water with a stiff North wind with 7 footers was a tad bit more that interesting. His boat driving skills were outstanding. He'd been out on the big water before. I never speared a wave all three days.

[YpsiBass]

The ride across that open water with a stiff North wind with 7 footers was a tad bit more that interesting.

Did it involve vomit?

[motocross269]

On Day one I drew Mike Iaconnelli. I was super pumped when my name was called after his at the Pre-Tournament dinner..(which was pretty darn good by the way)... We met up and he pretty much briefed me that we were staying in LSC for the day and he was confident he could pull close to 20lbs out of his area...

In the Morning we got the boat launched and all I could think about is If I rip the Fender off from Ike's rig I will never hear the end of it... . I got the rig parked safely and headed over to meet him at the Sea wall. By the time I got to where he was staged waiting for me and take off there must have been 10 photographers, I stood off to the side and waited for him to complete a radio interview.

His anchor light wasn't working and the Bass Cat service guy was right there swapping it out. It worked out well because I got an opportunity to meet another "Family" member from Bass Cat that pretty much knows my rig inside and out..Iaconnelli runs a Puma FTD a couple of years newer than mine so I knew my way around his rig pretty well...

Once Ike was able to break away from the press we loaded up and waited for our number to be called at Boat check.  Iaconnelli is super patient with the press and his fans. He took as much time as he could to answer questions, sign autographs and pose for pictures.

We took the short cut out back and we were finally on our way out to LSC. Our first stop was South of Mitchells bay in about 13-14 FOW. Iaconnelli was working a pretty distintive break with a drop of 1-2 feet and a weedline. He started out casting DT10s. He struggled with those for about the first hour then started doing what he called Power shotting. He was using a 1/2 ounce weight and a Strike King Fluke style bait. He used a Bait casting Rod with 12lb test Flourocarbon. What he would do is cast the rig out and let it fall. Once it hit bottom he would work it a few feet then reel it in quickly back to the boat and do the same routine again. Ike said most fish were hitting the bait on the fall and getting the fall rate right was critical..Last week the fish wanted the bait falling quickly for more of a reaction strike that is why he went with 1/2 ounce tungsten weights..
Within a few hours Iaconnelli had a limit of around 14lbs and we started to move around some searching for bigger fish. He basically stayed in the same General area over in Canada but none of the moves gave him any culls..

Throughout the day a couple of things stood out in my mind...One was that these guys simply work harder than we do.. I have fished with some of the top local guys as a Co angler in BFLs and other events and I have not seen a boater work like the pros.. In a 10 hour day I saw Iaconnelli stop long enough to drink 1/2 bottle of water and go to the bathroom 1 time. He never put his rod down and was in constant motion for every second until check in time..Which is something else that stood out. These guys don't put their Rods down until the last minute. I would be surprised if any of the Pros checked in more than 5 minutes early..

Somthing else that stood out was the different levels of boat maintenance and Cleanliness. When I was flying across the water with Ike I looked down and there was a cluster of Crankbaits sitting on the step up to the front deck. All I could think about was that one of those cranks are going to break free and fly up and smack me in the face..Not the way I want to get a piercing that is for sure... My day 2 boater, Rick Morris, his boat was spotless and he kept everything super organized so I definetly saw both ends of the spectrum in 2 days.. You could walk through the parking lot and easily spot the Pros' rigs that work deligently on maintenance and upkeep...

When Ike pulled in for weigh in he was greeted by a throng of fans and press...He was disappointed with his weight but took the time to talk to everyone that wanted a piece of his time. Ike weighed in 14 LBS 8oz..After weigh in Iaconnelli took alot of time to take care of sponsor obligations, deal with the press and spend some time with the fans. His boat had a broken motor mount bolt that sheered off at the head and he knew it was critical to get that taken care of but he didn't want to let anyone down. You could see he was genuinely concerned with keeping the fans happy..

Once we got Ike's rig onto the trailer I drove him over to the maintenance area.. There had to be at least 20 rigs getting service there on everything from Trolling motors to Power poles.. It looked like a Nascar pit area.. It was a very cool thing to see the amount of effort that goes into keeping these guys on the water..


Iaconnelli was a great guy and was far from the "Crazy man" he sometimes portrays on TV and in the press. He drove pretty conservitively and I never felt like we were at risk.  I may have seen him go "Ike" if he would have had a better day, i don't know, but we had a great time just talking about family, music, fishing or whatever...

[YpsiBass]

Great post

[djkimmel]

Some of them save their 'best stuff' for the video cameras. I remember cameraguy always talking about drawing Jimmy Houston years ago on St. Clair and he would say Jimmy was a completely different person in the tournament boat versus in front of his fishing show cameras. I never heard the trademark crazy laugh once while at that Bassmaster tournament that year.

[blakstr1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3b-bxoEqGM

this is a video I shot of Rick Morris on Day 3, he had sealed the deal on making the Classic by this point and asked me to take a video for him to post on various sites.  The quality didn't turn out too well on my iphone but you get the point.

don't want to hijack Brian's post, I will make a report on my 3 days soon..however Brian mentioned that Rick Morris' boat was spotless on Day 2 when he road with him....on Day 3 when I was with him IT WAS TRASHED!  LOL....the week was catching up with him by then.

[Team houston]

Great posts guys. Keep them coming.

[motocross269]

don't want to hijack Brian's post, I will make a report on my 3 days soon..however Brian mentioned that Rick Morris' boat was spotless on Day 2 when he road with him....on Day 3 when I was with him IT WAS TRASHED!  LOL....the week was catching up with him by then.

Those were my Snickers wrappers and Mt Dew cans...   If I had to marshal for a living I would weigh 500lbs....

[motocross269]

On Day 2 I drew Rick Morris. I didn't really know much about Rick so I didn't have any pre-concieved notions.  We set up the time to meet and he told me we wouldn't be running far in the Morning so don't sweat the thought of a long rough ride..Rick also told me he was sitting in 32nd place so he was right on the bubble for the classic so the pressure was on.

I met up with Rick at the launch. He was travelling with a buddy and he put the boat in so I didn't have to sweat ripping the fender off a Pros boat...   We idled over to the staging area and the contrast of Media and Fans between Rick and Ike was immediately apparent. I think some of these guys really focus on marketing their names and other guys just want to fish and compete. I think Rick is one of those guys that just want to fish and let everything else kind of fall in place.

We had a 1/2 hour or so before launch so we just BS'd about whatever while Rick got his equipment ready. He laid out 8 identical RPM rods with each having a different War Eagle Spinner bait.. It's not very often that I see anyone go "All in" on a pattern like that but it was pretty apparent that Rick had his game plan set for the day..

After the National Anthem we waited for our Number to be called and we were off. We barely got on plane coming out of the Shortcut and Rick set the boat down in 7-8 FOW, I was thinking "Really"...but on the front deck he went and started going to town working one of the Spinnerbaits.. We were less than a quarter of a mile from Metro just south of Harley. I remember seeing footage of Modrack fishing in there during the FLW but I was somewhat surprised that a Pro would stop there first thing in the AM....During the Tournament I made it a point to pretty much keep my mouth shut during the first couple of hours of fishing. We all know how it is when the adrenaline is pumping and you are trying to get things going and load the livewell. So as I set there quietly within minutes Rick tells me "You can talk you know" so that opened a can of worms.. I can rattle my jaws with the best of them... Rick took time to explain to me what he was doing and his reasons for choosing the spinnerbaits he was using. He was running primarily 20lb test Flourocarbon on those 8ft RPM rods.
After about an hour of pretty much nothing Rick decided to move.. He was confident that the bite would pick up in the afternoon and he would come back and hit this spot again later.

We made a Run to the bay just North of Windmill point...Once he sat down I stood on the back deck and the water clarity there looked great and you could easily see fish relating to the rock piles and weeds. Rick continued to wind and chuck the Spinnerbait and started puting decent tournament fish in the boat..
As a Marshal you aren't allowed to give any tips to the pros. First thing in the AM when he was setting his rods up I saw that he didn't have a "Drop rig" set out and ready for Followers. Rick has a ton of experience and has fished tournaments on LSC before and it didn't take him long on that Shallow bay to realize he needed a Tube rod out to pick up the chasers..Dropping to the followers and the Spinnerbait got him a small limit.. As soon as he got the 5th fish we were headed back up to Metro..

On the first cast at metro he swung a heavy 4lber into the boat with the spinnerbait. With the sun up it was way easier to see the small weedpatches and he was able to make more effective casts. What he was looking for is the clean patches within the weedpatches that hold fish....Sticking with the spinnerbaits and dropping tubes down to the followers he managed to cull up to 16lbs.



Rick got through weigh in and he had made the Cut...Now getting in the classic was in his own hands and he just needed to get things done one more day. He just happend to draw a fellow member of Team Bass for day 3 and I let him know that the Blakstr would bring him good luck. Rick was a great guy and he also worked his tail off. He showed me the scars from his surgeries on his wrist and after watching him work those spinnerbaits for 9 hours or so I can see why he would have issues...After the Day 3 weigh in Rick wanted to get his traveling partner out on the lake for some big smallies.. He was tired of fishing but said he would ride along and we could use his boat.. It was a great opportunity but I had just spent 6 days straight on the water and had to go out again on Monday. My wife gave me the "Evil eye" when I mentioned it to her so I figured I had better lay low and take a family day.....


Greatlakesbass.com member Savage running a camera boat..

[Waterfoul]

This is one of the best threads of 2013!!  Keep the stories coming guys!!  Please!! 

Ed?  Marc?  Let's here your experiences!!  You too Laport!

[fasttrack]

I too was a Marshall for 3 days. I rode with Alton Jones, James Niggemeyer and Terry Scroggins. Unfortunately I am playing catch up now and dont have time to write a full report, but I will get to it eventually. I'll just say it was a good experience overall and I'm glad I did it. Alton is my new favorite - an awesome fisherman and an even better person!

[Waterfoul]

Playing catch up??  Don't you mean Extreme Net Man??   

FISH!!!!

[Dan]

So, you don't want to hear about my ride from heck or to heck Mike??? I dig out that cinnamon almond recipe and now I'm old news. I see how it is.

(My Mom reads this stuff! Dan )

[LAPORTE]

Ive been smoked at work after being off for a week. Ill try to post something next week. My wife and I are going up to pre fish for the frogs only tourney next weekend on Foot Pond.. All you slackers out there better get signed up

[fasttrack]

Hey Mike,YOUR hands are all cut up for once! Lol

For those who dont know, Waterfoul and I fish 20-some tournaments a season. Since we're usually in his boat, I have the title of Fish and Livewell Manager. So while I get stabbed and cut by fins every week, once in a while I get to return the favor! Not to change the subject of this thread, but we had a great year and won Angler of the Year in both clubs

[Waterfoul]

So, you don't want to hear about my ride from heck or to heck Mike??? I dig out that cinnamon almond recipe and now I'm old news. I see how it is.

(My Mom reads this stuff! Dan )

No Dan, that's not it at all.  I know you do your blogs on Teardrop Bass, and we can all read it there.  Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself typing it all in twice!!     ( hi Dan's mom! )