Yamamoto Pro Joe Lucarelli Lands Second in Stren Northern On Lake Champlain
Steve and Joe Lucarelli placed first and second respectively at the Stren Series Northern Division event on Lake Champlain in Plattsburgh, New York on August 27-29th. It's the first time that a father and son have won a tournament of this caliber. Their stories of the event are brimming with advanced tips for you on how best to dropshot, how to use Carolina rigs in grass and more.
But the real story is about family, the bond between a father and son, and a dad's dreams to see his kid do better than him.
Here's son Joe's story.
I had found a largemouth spot in practice, and I didn't really know if it was any good or what it was all about, because I didn't want anyone to see me in there, says Yamamoto pro Joe Lucarelli from Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
I felt that I - or someone else - could beat them up pretty badly if someone went in there. It was off of the main lake, and I just happened to be driving past on my way to my smallmouth spot about 2-4 minutes away. While looking at my fishfinder, I saw that the bottom had a little dip as I went past offshore, so I throttled down and followed it in, and there was a little pocket with grass mixed in with rock. It was really a very small spot about 15-20 feet wide by 60 feet long, but there was a ton of bait in the area.
I stayed there to prefish for about 15 minutes, and I caught one 4-1/2 one 3-3/4 and a 3-pounder. So I was pretty sure I'd come back there when it was tournament time.
It so happens that the first day of the tournament, we get a giant cold front, it was 42 degrees. In comparison, for a whole week and a half before this tournament, it was super hot and humid, anywhere from 85-90 degrees, for about ten days straight.
Managing My Largemouth with Jigs and Texas Rigged Flappin' Hogs
I had heard a long time ago, that with largemouth, the first major front that comes in of the fall, kind of makes the largemouth go wild. So I said, I'm going to start with those largemouth. I have been fishing on Champlain over ten years, and I have never ever started the day fishing for largemouth, so this was a first.
Well, I run right to the spot when the tournament starts and make a pass through there with a jig and don't do anything. I make another pass through with a Texas-rigged Yamamoto Flappin' Hog and catch one about four pounds and one about 2 pounds. I say okay, maybe I have a couple of fish here - but I wasn't 100% sure of the spot yet.
So I go to fish for some smallmouth, and it wasn't all that good, and I bounce back to the largemouth hole about 10:30, make another pass, and I get one that weights 6 pounds 4 ounces. I was switching between a 3/4 oz flipping jig and a Texas-rigged Yamamoto Flappin' Hog with a 1/2 oz bullet sinker.
When I am fishing for largemouth, I use a 1/2 oz pegged weight, 3/0 straight shank hook, no rattle, basically just trying to keep it wet. You just throw it, and try to keep note of where you get bit, and try to throw into the same kinds of locations in the grass. When I get into that grass, what I like to do if it is thick milfoil or if I want to flip a dense mat, I'll rip the two stubbly flappers (not the long tails) off, and it helps the Flappin' Hog fall through the grass a little bit better.
I noticed that since we had been getting all those hot days for over a week, that the shallow grass was starting to slime up, which basically put all the fish right on the outside edge of the grass, which was perfect. It made it easy for me since there was no hunting through the grass for them, they were right there.
So I just rotated between the Flappin' Hog and a 3/4 oz jig, and ended up catching 21 pounds 8 ounces of largemouth to lead the first day. I think my Dad was in 8th or 9th, with close to 19 pounds of smallmouth.
When the second day started, I blasted over to my largemouth, make one pass through there, catch one about 4-1/2 pounds, and I say, you know what, I don't want to melt this spot down just yet; I want to try and manage these largemouth, so I left there, and go to my smallmouth, and those fish were chewing. I was popping one here, one there - mixing it up between the dropshot (Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm) and a Carolina rig (Yamamoto Flappin' Hog).
Dropshotting the Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm with Joe LucarelliI used the Shad Shape Worm (68L-series) in Baby Bass (color #305), since we had real high sun that day, and it was kind of slick water. Sometimes I'll throw like a 194J if the sun is up high, and anytime I have lowlight conditions, I will throw dark green pumpkin (#297). If it is real crazy flat like this day was, however, I'll throw that Baby Bass since they can see right through it and it blends in. Champlain is not too, too clear, so I was using 6 lb Sugoi fluorocarbon leader but I also use 5 lb Sugoi leaders on clearer lakes, about 12 foot long leaders, and if it is ultra clear, about 18 feet long. I back that up with 15 lb test Spiderwire UltraCast braid as the main line. That was for dropshotting with a 1/2 oz dropshot sinker. I keep my eyeballs glued on my electronics, my Hummingbird, and put my trolling motor on 60%, and I won't even make a cast until I see a fish, which is when I'll drop on him, and there's a 50/50 chance I'll catch it. On the big lakes like Champlain, there is almost never a dead slick day, there is almost always some sort of wave action, and the place never really gets a chance to settle down, so you don't have to put that much action on your dropshot. I will drop on a fish, and just you holding it tight is putting action on it, since the boat is bobbing up an down on the chop. If they won't bite after about 20 seconds, what I'll do is slack off a little bit, and I will shake it on a slack line. Because of the braid, it is such a direct connection to the bait, if you're moving your bait on braid, I think it's putting way too much action on a tight line, so I'll shake it on a slack line. That seems to work well. |
Carolina Rigging the Flappin Hog for Smallmouth
I also used a Carolina rig for my smallmouth with that Yamamoto Flappin' Hog on a 3/0 straight-shank hook with a 3/4 oz sinker. On the Flappin Hog on the Carolina rig, for some reason they wanted green pumpkin, and they wanted a little bit of chartreuse dye on the tail. It just seemed like that color combo got it done. It didn't matter if it was a bright sky or overcast conditions.
That was basically it, those are the spots and the baits I used. Once you find your fish up here, you just have to figure out how to catch them. This time, it wasn't a problem.
I finished day two in first place with 18+ pounds for the day, and more than a three pound lead.
I think Dad moved up from 8th or 9th - into 5th place at the end of day two.
The crazy thing was, my Dad was fishing on the New York side of the lake, and I was fishing on the Vermont side of the lake, and we never even saw each other. As it turned out in the end, he found the best stuff in New York, and I found the best stuff in Vermont. Indeed, he had found the best spot for that week on the whole lake! I thought it was neat that he was doing his thing, and I was doing mine. We used to kind of practice together, and it wasn't productive. We'd end up with our similar styles, the way we fish offshore, with our side imaging, we'd kind of bump into the same stuff, and the next thing you know, you're sharing the fish, and it doesn't make any sense to do that. He's a great smallmouth fisherman, I can catch them too, but we were halving the available fish between us. We were taking fish away from each other, and we wouldn't know if the other one had already been to a place and had melted it down. So it was a little tricky to practice together. Although we were having fun, it was probably hurting our chances that either one would do well.
This event, everything worked out. We roomed together, discussed things, but we did our own things out on the water.
As far as the final day went, I have no problem with a north wind, a south wind or a west wind, but due to passage of a hurricane offshore, we had a rare east wind, and that little strip of grass I was fishing for the largemouth, it was such a small spot, I just couldn't fish it like I wanted in that easterly wind, even with a power pole to hold me in there.
At the final weigh-in, as my Dad put his first fish in the weigh basket, I thought maybe he put the big one in first. It was a four-pounder, and then his next one was the same, and the weights kept going up! So he looks at me as he takes out his last fish, a real good one, and he like mouths the words, "I'm sorry" to me. I don't think he truly knew what he had up until that moment. I knew what I had, and I knew if anyone caught over 19-1/2 pounds, that I would get bumped. I had fished super hard for this, and of course I didn't want to be bumped, but if someone had to do it, I couldn't think of a better or more deserving person than Dad.
And then I weighed my fish, and I had 16 and change, and Dad was announced the winner, with me a close second. He was so sorry because he beat me, and that was a feeling that I couldn't fully understand. It's something I don't have to deal with or don't understand because I don't have any kids yet.
"You didn't do anything wrong. You came here to win," I said to Dad. Don't fish it if you don't want to win is something he had always taught me.
We talked about it later. "Someday when you have kids of your own, you will realize," he told me.
Besides those emotions, our one-two was a little bit special, unique and different. I won a BASS Open on Champlain on 2005 and Dad came in 5th, so we got to experience this in a high level tournament before, and it was nice to experience two Lucarellis in the winners circle again!
Everybody we know and who was there thought it was a pretty neat thing for the two of us. As far as I know, I think we are the only parent-child team to go one-two in a tournament of this caliber.
When they were taking the pictures of my Dad holding up the supersize check, I told them I'd like to get a copy of that photo too, for my office. So I've been checking my mail for that photo of my Dad in first place. That's the place he'll always be to me.
- Joe Lucarelli
Click here to read dad Steve Lucarelli's story: