The fourth day of the MLF World Championship (2 p.m. EST Saturday on CBS) brings the second half of the Elimination Round back to the Stick Marsh and Farm 13.
With weights from the Shotgun Round carrying over to seed the competitors in starting order, the five anglers (Mike Iaconelli, Bobby Lane, Aaron Martens, Mike McClelland and Kevin VanDam) are fishing the Elimination Round for the top 2 spots to advance to Sudden Death – the other three will be eliminated from competition.
Skeet Reese is not in competition today because he won his Shotgun Round at Garcia, allowing him to skip over the Elimination Round and go straight to the Sudden Death Round.
With that, the five World Championship qualifiers fishing today are glad to see the Stick Marsh as their field of play. Though most have never fished the lake, they are well aware of its reputation as a big bass “farm,” giving them hope they can catch up fast and snag one of the final two slots to Sudden Death.
Florida fisheries have always been a nemesis for Iaconelli but he was stoked about being at the world famous Stick Marsh.
“I have heard and read about this place since I was a kid,” he said. “For a while there back in the 1990s, every fishing magazine you picked up had this place featured in it. I’ve always wanted to fish here, so no matter how I do today, I can now at least say I have fished the Stick Marsh and scratch it off the bucket list.”
Florida’s famed “farm lakes” are very unique fisheries. And since none of the competitors can get any information, it’s been interesting to see how they've dissected what are essentially flooded farms. Given Ike’s gift for articulating bass fishing concepts, he explained how he takes clues from the surrounding landscape to help him find fish in these flooded rectangles.
“If you ever want to better understand a lake’s topography quickly, just drive around and look at the natural terrain surrounding the lake,” he offered. “If you want to better understand Texas lakes like Rayburn and Toledo Bend, just drive around that part of the country and see how the land rolls down to form those key ‘drains’ they talk about all the time in Texas.
“If you want to better understand lakes in the Ozarks, drive around and check out the hills and ‘hollers,’ as they call them. Imagine flooding those hollers with water and what it would look like underwater.”
Ike said he has applied the same concepts while being shuttled back and forth to the flooded farms of southeast Florida.
“Obviously we can’t get information in MLF, but there is a lot of information out here just in observing these surrounding agricultural areas,” he continued. “As we’re driving to the lake, I’m looking at these big agricultural farms and seeing how they ditched them out for drainage. I see the levees that serve as roadbeds to transport heavy equipment out to the fields. I’ve noticed how most levees have a deep canal running next to them. I’m looking at all these things and picturing in my mind what these lakes look like underwater – they’re just flooded fields. But within those fields are little key relief changes due to old levees, ditches, drains, barrow pits and canals.”
At Garcia, Ike finished 2nd using vegetation to help him “read” the lake’s underwater framework. A distinct line of shallow vegetation outlined what he thinks was an old barrow pit or drainage basin in the field.
“It tipped me off to a subtle little 4- to 7-foot drop,” he said. “That’s a huge contour in a lake that’s just a flooded, flat field. Bass relate to that kind of relief in Florida lakes; it ended up being a key component to my catches the other day. And that’s the exact kind of thing I’m going to look for here at the Stick Marsh.”
Since Reese already advanced, Ike enters the Elimination Round in the lead with 58-13. Four spots back at the bottom of the heap is VanDam with 27-15, over 20 pounds behind Ike.
That’s a huge deficit, which again is why these guys were glad to be on a place known for big bass.
"I’ve heard a lot about this place, but I’ve never been here,” VanDam said. “And hey, I’ve got nowhere to go but up.”
VanDam had a lackluster performance on Garcia and was forced to make up ground fast.
“Over on Garcia, I had some bites that led me in the wrong direction early on and in this format, you just can’t get behind like that or you’ll get buried. So today I’ve got to make the right decision right out of the gate. The longer you wait to get started in these deals, the harder it is to catch up, so I need get things going immediately to get a head start on this bunch.”
