Ito carrying it over from New York

Taku Ito is just coming off a successful run of smallmouth fishing on the New York swing. The Bassmaster Elite Series rookie from Japan scored a 6th and 10th place finish to fish both times on Championship Sunday.

It’s way early in the game on Lake St. Clair but he’s inside the Top 10 according to BASSTrakk.

I have paid close attention to Ito since meeting him and covering him in the Basspro.com Bassmaster Open Series. He wasn’t there long, He qualified for the Elite Series after his first season in the Central division. This is only Ito’s 10th event, and he is making it clear that smallmouth are also in his angling wheelhouse.

Ito is very meticulous, spending several hours after each day in the hotel parking lot fine-tuning his drop shot and other finesse rigs. Much of those are Japanese designed and only available in that country. He’s also a lure designer, with a keen eye for lure design.

This morning he described having three separate patterns in play. Those are for cruising smallmouth, schooling fish, and loners that he spies on his live scan sonar.

He told me his goal for today is 19 pounds. Yesterday he caught a pair of 5-pounders to boost his confidence in his game plan. He will be fun to watch this week.