It’s Back to School Time
Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 6:35PM The return of the Bass University seminars is hot and loaded with unbelievable fish catching information. After a several year sabbatical, co-founders Mike “Ike” Iaconelli and Pete Gluszek have brought back the weekend bass fishing seminars. The inaugural first class of the season was on December 5 and 6 and started in Runnemede NJ (Philadelphia PA region), a place where both Pete and Mike started cutting their teeth in bass fishing. The seminar professors which included both Mike and Pete were Dave Mansue, Gerald Swindle, Dave Walk, and Greg Hackney. All of whom have great success in the bass fishing tournament trail.
The day started with a line out the doors for registration at the Runnemede Holiday Inn. At the registration desk were Mike Iaconelli’s wife Becky and daughters Rylie and Drew who were helping getting things organized and handing out t-shirts and the day’s program. As the line goes by the table Becky is telling everyone to “Please eat some food” being which a continental style breakfast of bagels, muffins and danish with coffee, tea and orange juice. You gathered your breakfast and walk in the conference/class room for the day. You look around see all the banners and seats with a handout bag loaded with various samples (line, lures, magazines, and other items) then in the back of the room was a tackle display by Susquehanna Fishing Tackle, which displayed for purchase various fishing tackle the professors were talking about. After finding a seat and getting settled in, the seminars begin with Master of Ceremonies Bill Decoteau introducing the day’s activities and professors.
Dave Wolak was first up after he gets Ike’s daughter to pass out notes he made up for each of the students, he gets started. He did a magnificent in depth power point presentation on fish in various type of grass and fishing various areas on mats. He started with showing the various types of grass you usually find in the area and what to look for and where to place you lure in the grass he had an underwater video on how the grass creates caverns with in itself where the bass live/hide to ambush forage. He finishes up by getting escorted by master of ceremonies, out of the room, so that we can get a break and into the next session.
Gerald “Gman” Swindle is the next professor on. With his Alabama accent and antics he starts with a story or two to get the students going with laughter. Stories of being on the road so much, he has quite a few to tell. He starts to get into his topic of crankbaits, he shows them on an overhead and discusses the characteristic of them and where when and how to use them in shallow what areas. He then starts to talk about how your mental state affects your fishing abilities. He went into how the passing of his brother put him in a downward spiral to the point he had to seek out a “mental coach” to get him back on track. The downward spiral almost cost him his fishing career but with the help of the “mental coach” and a few rubber bands he is well on his way back to being on his fishing game. Gman also gave us some advice that we all should take to the bank. It was “Keep an open mind all the time” and the other was “Look at the positives that come out of negative situations”. Very very sound advice. Gman finishes up his day with an embarrassing fishing moment story, while he was fishing with a female reporter during a tournament. My god I’m still laughing.
Up next was Mike Iaconelli, Ike for short. Mike who grew up in the Runnemede area is well greeted by the crowd. Ike’s topic was about finesse fishing with a rod and reel in hand and a power point presentation on the screen he goes into teaching frenzy. He gets so involved and excited about his presentation it’s like he is on the water. We all know what he does out there. He talks about the noodle rig, shaky head, flick shake and tail weighted French fry tactics. Throughout the seminar he shows how to set the hook….WHACK!!! He exclaims and with that here goes the shaky head set up, he has rigged up, flying down the aisle and into the wall behind him, “OOOPS he says I guess I’ll have to pay to get the hole fixed”. He continues speaking and does another hook set WHACK!!! He exclaims again and the next thing you know he buries the rod tip into the ceiling above his head, he adds, I guess it’s a good thing I get my rods from Diawa. The crowd starts to chuckle. With that Bill Decoteau steps in and closes up his session.
The final speaker of the first day was Pete Gluszek another New Jersey local. He starts his presentation on fishing for smallmouth. Pete uses another power point presentation and shows a few lures and equipment he uses. He talks about finesse and reactionary lures that he uses for smallmouth and where when and how he uses them to find the infamous bronze colored bass. Pete goes so in depth that he goes into overtime and Bill Decoteau has to flag him for using too much time.
At the end of the day the four pro’s stand up front for what they call “Round Table” discussions. This is the time where the audience can fire away questions to pro’s either as a group or individual, about fishing in general, again a load of information comes out of the mouths of the pro’s
Just when you think the day was over Bill Decoteau make announcement that there is a happy hour at the bar in Holiday Inn and that everyone is invited to come and hang with the pro’s while having a drink and/or dinner. I was unable to attend the happy hour, however from talking to several other classmates it turnouts to be another series of seminars with not only today’s professor but with the next day’s professors (Greg Hackney and Dave Mansue) as well.
The next day the student were meet with Becky telling us to “Eat more food” again the tables had the continental breakfast stuff. And making sure everyone was happy with the first day. Before the start of 2nd today sessions
The first speaker of the day was introduced by MC Bill Decoteau as being Dave Mansue. A New Jersey native, which just retired from the West Windsor Police force. He start by saying that in his 30year career he has (as he looks to the junior bass club that is attending) never had to arrest any juvenile that had a hunting or fishing license. With that he goes into in-depth power point presentation about tidal river fishing, after all he just took first place in a BASS Open tournament in the Upper Chesapeake bay area in Maryland. He talk about how the moon sun and earth aline themselves, good times during the changing tide and places that hold fish. These all can be used on any tidal water not just the Upper Chesapeake.
Next up was Greg Hackney who himself was just getting over a FLW victory, were he beat out Ike by a mere 3oz of weight. Greg talked about his bait selection for using on lethargic fish. He makes the comments “that if you poke a dog long enough you will aggravate him enough where he will bite you to stop” he uses this type of philosophy while fishing by dropping a lure in front of a bass time and time again, as he says sooner or later the bass will get agitated and bite the lure. Greg closes his session with a question and answer period before being shut down by Bill Decoteau so we could listen to the next professor.
Again Ike and Pete spoke about their finesse fishing and smallmouth fishing respectively before giving way to the full field of professors holding a “round table” discussion in front of the students. After the round table discussion it was time to say good bye. I would say more than half the students stayed and chit chatted with the pro’s for at least 2 hours. The pro’s were showing off and giving out more knowledge to those who asked. Simply, just a marvelous time.
One of the major highlights of the weekend was when the pro’s held a lunch for all the junior members of the crowd. Here the juniors were able to sit in their own room and eat and talk with each of the pros on fishing tactics. The juniors all came out with big smiles on their faces, unknown if it was because of the food or from talking with the pros, but I say it was the later of the two.
The information everyone gets out of these seminars far more out ways the cost. To put it into perspective for me, is I spend much more money on buying rod, reels and tackle that I either don’t use or just use once. Were I could spend the money more on educating myself on using the equipment that I already have.
The Bass University is the missing like for those that think bass fishing ends when the water gets hard. These are the class’s that have been missing in everyone’s arsenal of lures over the past several years. I hope that the co-founders Mike Iaconelli and Pete Gluszek continue to put on the classes for years to come. If anyone wants more information about the classes go to the web-link below
THANK YOU!!!! Mike and Pete
Fishon Fishhard
Harold “Howie” Range