It’s Sunday.
I thought you might want to know what I think the delays will do to the fishing. (There’s no point in complaining or try to blame anyone. It is what it is. We’re professionals. We deal with it.)
The effect on the fish is positive. They’ve had three days with no pressure after a thorough practice and a day of serious competition. It’s like there’s no such thing as an angler, at least as far as they’re concerned. Let’s face it: No one with any sense at all has been out fishing for the past three days.
That doesn’t mean they are in the same places, however. Wind like we’ve had does several things. To begin with it moves the smallmouth around a little bit. Now, I don’t mean the wind blows the fish. That would be ridiculous. That much wind would destroy the continent.
What it does do is move the algae, the plankton and maybe even the sandworms. That moves the perch, the gobies and most of the rest of their food source. We know the smallies follow their food source in the fall so we can’t be sure where we might find them tomorrow.
Another thing the wind does is change the water depth. On a big, natural body of water high, sustained winds pushes the water almost like a tide. Some places will be noticeably shallower and some will be noticeably deeper. That may, or may not, matter.
The next issue is good or bad depending upon your point of view. There are only two things up for grabs this week besides pride. The first is the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year title. The second are a few Classic spots.
The delay — and shortened tournament — is good if you’re leading in the AOY race. There’s less time for someone to catch you. And, it’s good if you’re just inside the Classic cut. Again, there’s less time for someone to make up ground and knock you out of next year’s big event.
It’s just the opposite if you’re trying to climb up in the points. One less day of fishing means one less day to make up ground on the guy(s) in front of you.
Another issue is scheduling. One angler had to leave today because of contractual commitments. I’m sure it killed him to leave in the middle of a tournament. But, this is a business. We have schedules. We organize our time based on those schedules.
I have the same problem tomorrow. Regardless of whether we fish or don’t fish I have to leave tomorrow evening. I don’t want to end a season that way. I’d rather catch a bunch of big, fat smallies on the last day of my 2014 B.A.S.S. season.
No matter how much I might want to stay, though, I can’t have a television commercial film crew in place on Tuesday somewhere else and not show up. I have a commitment (read: written contract). I can’t expect one of my sponsors to eat a lot of money because the wind was blowing in Michigan.
Next Monday we’ll talk about some really exciting new things that are on the horizon.
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter or visit his website, mikeiaconelli.com.
