Glenn: Hi, I'm Glenn May with bassresource.com and I'm here with Mike Iaconelli. Mike it's great to have you aboard today.
Mike Iaconelli: It's good to see you man.
Glenn: Mike, how long have you been fishing now?
Mike: I've been fishing before I can remember. I've been fishing since I was a little kid, probably 4 or 5 years old, old enough to hold a rod. Trout fishing and panfish and started getting into the bass thing in my teens and I've been hooked ever since. I absolutely love this sport, love the whole process of trying to figure out how to catch fish. That's what this game is all about for me.
Glenn: Out of all those years of fishing, what would you say is your most memorable bass?
Mike: The first one I caught obviously. I tell people this and for non-anglers, non-fishermen they look at you like you're crazy when you can vividly remember the first bass you ever caught as a kid, but when you relate that story to other anglers they're like, I can too. The first bass I ever caught in my like I was probably 10 or 11 years old. I threw a 9S Floating Rapala, 9 is the size, S stands for silver, black back. I threw that Rapala out there. Actually it was a bait that I borrowed from my grandfather's tackle box and I twitched that thing, not even knowing what to do with it, kind of watched it float, started reeling it, stopped it, watched it float and one about 2-1/2 pound, maybe 3 pounds came up and exploded on it and that sticks with me to this day. That fish is responsible for what I'm doing right now.
Glenn: You owe it to your grandfather then.
Mike: I owe it to my pop and the one 3-pounder. It was pretty awesome.
Glenn: What's the biggest fish you caught?
Mike: The biggest bass I ever caught was 14 pounds 1 ounce, I caught at Lake Amistad. The biggest bass I ever caught in a tournament was last year at Lake Amistad; it was 12 pounds 13 ounces. That happened on the first day. It was a giant.
Glenn: Nice.
Mike: Yeah.
Glenn: When you're targeting big fish like that, what's your favorite big bass tactic or maybe the most unusual big bass tactic you like to use?
Mike: There's a couple. I'd say for big fish one of the theories that I use successfully is big baits, big fish and I do believe that. Getting like a big swim bait or a 10-inch worm or something oversized to trigger a bigger bite. The other two, if I had to pick two baits out of my most favorite big fish baits, one is a jig, obviously a 3/4 or 1 ounce football head jig. The big fish love it. That's what I caught the 12-13 on last year, a Berkley Gripper Jig or a buzzbait, a top water, especially during the post-spawn period. I've caught more big post-spawn females on a Buzz Bait than any other bait out there. You give me a jig, a buzzbait and then maybe a 10-inch worm or a swim bait and I'm ready to catch some big bass.
Glenn: Nice. Outside of fishing what other things do you like to do?
Mike: There's fishing and there's fishing and I like to fish sometimes too. I do like to fish. I like to fish for other species, but in my downtime for me, we travel so much, a lot of what I like to do in my downtime is time with my kids, time at home. Probably what other people take for granted, which is like a lot of yard work and playing in the yard with the kids or going to the movies or the mall, that stuff to me is what I like to do when I'm not fishing. I miss out on a lot of that stuff when we're traveling 280-300 days a year, so when I get back home I lay low and spend time with my family.
Glenn: If you could take time off and plan your dream vacation, what would that be?
Mike: That's a good question, dream vacation. I've been a lot of cool places. I'd say a dream vacation to me would be probably Australia. Australia is a place I've always wanted to go. It's such a big flight out there to where I'm at, but they've got untapped fisheries out there. Not necessarily bass, but they've got barramundi and they've got all these jacks, grand chervelli. Awesome fishing and it's untapped. To me, give me about a week and a half in Australia and a fishing rod and I'd be a happy camper.
Glenn: That would be a blast. What's one thing about you that the fans out there might not know about that you'd like to share with us?
Mike: There's a lot of things. Probably one is maybe my background. I think a lot of people don't realize I was a professional disc jockey for about five years of my life. When I say professional disc jockey people are like, what's he talking about, on a radio show? I actually DJ'd at clubs and roller-skating rinks and parties and weddings and it was fun. It was a fun period of my life when I got to really interact with people and got to listen to music and play music every night and if I wasn't fishing today I'd probably still be in that business.
Glenn: You have a pretty sizable vinyl collection don't you?
Mike: You're starting to date me a little now Glenn, I don't know if I want to do that. When I DJ'd we used turntables and we used vinyl records and it's kind of like a lost art form. Everybody is CDs now and MP3 players and computers to DJ, but I've got turntables and I used to mix beats and spin records and I probably got 20,000 or 30,000 pieces of vinyl in my collection so it's pretty expansive.
Glenn: Nice. One last question, what's your favorite ice cream?
Mike: Favorite ice cream. I'm going to go with the caramel fudge. I'm going to go with the caramel fudge. I'm taking it back to New Jersey a little bit, the caramel fudge Wawa ice cream. If you're not from New Jersey you might not know what the Wawa is, but a Wawa is like our little deli convenience store up there in the northeast and they've got a really good caramel fudge.
Glenn: I have to go check that out. Thanks for being with us Mike. I do appreciate it and we're looking forward to seeing you out on the water.
Mike: Thanks Glenn, I appreciate it.
