Having obtained his last minute invite to the long sought after Bass Pro Tour, Jacopo showed up on Toledo Bend loaded with hope and new insights to begin the new season in the best way.
A few days of official practice available to him provided interesting results, so much so that he thought he might have a good tournament. We have to remember, however, that the Bass Pro Tour fields the top American professional bass anglers in a particular format. No longer is competition a question of landing your five best fish (by weight), but rather the total weight of all an angler’s catches, which are essentially without limit.
This format is possible due to the presence of a marshall in every boat who instantly verifies the weight of a legal fish, thereby recording the catch in the live standings. The tournament, which is transmitted live from cameras on the boats of the pros who are highest in the standings, is essentially live and the standings are continualy updated. All of this radically changes the strategies that each angler must adopt in order to win. From the search for big fish and from sitting on a single spot, anglers must instead seek out zones that hold the most bass of a medium-large size.
Jacopo selected five good areas from practice, areas he would fish using Livescope, where he located suspended bass that were in search of bait fish. During the tournament however four of the five spots Jacopo had chosen had been blown out by dirty water that had a bright yellow color, like the water one sees when a river is flooded. The conditions made Jacopo’s established technique impossible to fish. In the single spot where the water remained sufficiently clear, Jacopo managed to catch one fish. But it would be his only fish of the first day.
On day 2, Jacopo abandoned the pattern he had hoped for, and which had cost him time and fuel on the previous day. Seeking other options in water that was more clear, he managed to catch four fish, bringing his two-day total to five catches for 10 pounds, 8 ounces.
Certainly, when considered against the best limits that were caught, where anglers landed over forty bass per day and weighed in more than 100 pounds, it would seem a bad start to Jacopo’s competition season. In reality, Jacopo clearly grasps the reasons for what happened after analysis of the facts: he didn’t know the lake, he fished similar spots without having alternate plans, he was inflexible on competition day and relied too heavily on the same old convictions.
Based on this analysis, he will approach Stage Two on Santee Cooper in South Carolina from February 20-25 with a positive attitude.
