Champion’s Enthusiasm Is Catching

It has been nearly a week since Michael Iaconelli won the CITGO Bassmasters Classic, a three-day tournament involving 61 of the world’s top bass-fishing pros, held this year on the sprawling swamp otherwise known as the Louisiana Delta.

“And I’m still on my way home,” the angler from Woodbury Heights, N.J., said via cell phone Thursday afternoon, as he was driving through Baltimore, his trophy by his side. “I made a pit stop in Washington, D.C., to do a youth tournament for inner-city kids, and otherwise, after one night of celebration, I’ve spent my time in and out of airports and news stations. It’s all been very humbling.”

Such is the life of a Classic champion.

Though he said he was “still riding on Cloud 9,” Iaconelli said he was well aware that by reeling in the top total weight of 37 pounds 14 ounces, he had changed his life significantly.

“I’ve had this dream for so long now and it’s the strangest feeling because I’m still in shock,” he said. “But I do know that it’s life-altering. No. 1, it’s going to financially secure me to have a spot in the fishing world for the rest of my life, either as a tournament fisherman or through promotions or somewhere inside the industry.

“But more important, my win will help open up the sport to a lot of people who don’t really know about it yet, because of me and my personality ... my intensity and energy.”

Those who watched the angler raising his fists and screaming like an excited child as he accepted his trophy -- as well as the $200,000 winner’s check -- before a crowd of 11,000 at the New Orleans Arena know what he’s talking about.

“The Tonight Show” apparently bit on this aspect of the fisherman. Or was it that he also is an accomplished break-dancer, which he showed after Day 1 of the tournament?

In any case, Iaconelli is in demand. And thank goodness for cell phones. On his way home, the fisherman got dozens of calls, finally hiring a publicist and agent. Presumably, his mother didn’t have to go through them when she called and told her son that she was arranging a homecoming parade in the small New Jersey town of Runnemede.

“That was just unbelievable,” Iaconelli said, adding that endorsement offers from fishing-related products were also coming in.

And to think none of this would be happening had one of his bass been just a little bit smaller. Iaconelli, participating in his fourth Classic, needed and got a productive final day, landing five bass weighing 10 pounds 14 ounces to edge perennial contender Gary Klein of Texas, whose three-day total was 36 pounds 2 ounces.

“It probably won’t sink in until I get home and sit down on my couch and get to relax for the first time,” Iaconelli said. “Maybe then I’ll come off of this euphoria.”

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Iaconelli is the first northeastern pro to win the Classic.

“I get asked about that a lot,” he said. “New Jersey is a sleeper state for bass fishing. I really cut my teeth and learned what I know now in the state of New Jersey. It’s a shame that people automatically associate New Jersey with a big city like New York or Philadelphia or Atlantic City. But we have a great fishery.

“In the pine barrens, we have acidic bodies of water that are just like Florida. In north Jersey, we have glacial lakes that are perfect. And then we have sand ponds, which have clear water. We have the tidal Delaware River, which runs right up our border. So I learned everything I needed to learn within an hour’s drive of my house.”

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Kentucky angler Mark Menendez fished alongside Barkley, the black Labrador retriever he brought along as a good-luck charm and companion. Though he caught the biggest bass on Day 1, a 6-pound 2-ounce largemouth, he could manage only a three-day total of 21 pounds 11 ounces, good for 23rd place and $8,250.

“Having him in the boat with me makes me relax and fish better,” Menendez said of the dog he rescued from an Atlanta animal shelter. “He’s my best fishing buddy.”

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Shown on ESPN2 and ESPN, this year’s Classic was viewed daily in an average of 425,000 households, an increase of 44% over the previous year and nearly double the 2001 viewership. The final day’s program, which included the crowning of the champion, received an 0.7 rating, up 40% from an 0.5 in 2002.

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The Classic may be regarded as the Super Bowl of bass fishing, but the Wal-Mart FLW Tour’s world championship, scheduled Sept. 10-13 on the James River in Richmond, Va., is more lucrative.

Forty-eight pros, including the Southland’s lone representative, Aaron Martens, will vie for $1.5 million. The winner will receive $500,000, which promoters point out is $60,000 more than cyclist Lance Armstrong received for winning his fifth consecutive Tour de France.

The FLW event is unique in that it utilizes an NCAA-style bracket system in which pro-division anglers are seeded according to year-end rankings and fish head-to-head with other competitors instead of against the entire field. After the two-day opening round, 24 anglers advance to the semifinals and 12 to the finals. The finalists start at zero pounds and fish for the top weight, which almost literally will be worth its weight in gold.

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Freshwater News

Diamond Valley Lake is scheduled to open Oct. 3 and prospective visitors should be aware that, because of water-quality issues, all vessels must pass inspection and be certified before being allowed onto the sprawling reservoir in southwestern Riverside County. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is offering free inspections Saturday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., in parking lot B at Los Angeles Valley College, 5888 Fulton Ave. Inspections also are set Aug. 16 in Diamond Bar and Aug. 23 in San Diego.

Additionally, inspections are offered daily, 6 a.m.-2 p.m., at Lake Skinner Recreation Area in Temecula, and 8 a.m.-3 p.m. near the Diamond Valley Lake visitors’ center.

To protect drinking-water quality, swimming and water skiing will not be allowed. Nor will personal watercraft, sit-aboard kayaks and float tubes. These rules will also go into effect at Lake Skinner on Oct. 3. Details: www.mwdh2o.com.

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Saltwater Fishing

The California Fish and Game Commission late last week voted to allow fishing for rockfish as far out as 180 feet beginning Sept. 1.

Currently, fishermen must remain inside 120 feet, which is also inside of prime rockfish habitat.

The restrictions are being relaxed because recent stock assessments have shown more bocaccio, the main species of concern, than previously believed.

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Winding Up

Carlsbad’s Jon Schwartz used a little creativity to earn catch-of-the-week honors.

After hooking a 200-pound blue marlin while trolling aboard a Rancho Leonero super panga, he had someone throw a kayak overboard, climbed into it “and had the ride of his life for the next hour,” said Roy Baldwin, spokesman for the Baja California resort.

Unfortunately, Baldwin added, the fish had swallowed the hook and couldn’t be revived.