Yamamoto Pro Steve Lucarelli Wins Stren Northern On Lake Champlain
September 7, 2009
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 dad Steve's story.
Some days it seems you can't make a mistake. You take a wrong left turn and you have no idea why you did, but it happened to be the right turn to make, and that's what I did at this tournament, says Yamamoto pro, Steve Lucarelli from Meredith, New Hampshire.
During prefish, I took a left turn and just happened to find one bass-laden rock in the middle of nowhere off an enormous weedbed.
I was scouting out an enormous weedline or weedbed or however you want to describe it. If it was on dry land, you might call it a huge meadow. The weedline runs for a 1/2 mile on the edge of this one particular flat. It's enormous.
With my Hummingbird Sidefinder imaging system, I was probing offshore and back, just hoping to find something when, I would say 100 yards out in front of the weeds, a rock - just this one rock - shows up on the edge of the display screen.
I made that left turn I was telling you about, and went over to it and looked at it. The arches on it indicating fish were ridiculous. I thought they may be walleye or something, but when I sent the dropshot down, a 3-1/4 smallie was right on it. Next drop, another 3-1/4. So I left it alone and did not check it again until the end of the day when I pulled another 3-plus off it on a single drop. And that was it. That was going to be the tournament spot for me.
So there was this 1/2 mile long weedline and then there was just that one rock. The weeds were in 8-9 feet of water. The rock was in 28 feet of water. I hoped there was some sort of relationship between that rock and the weedbed, and that fish used one to get to the other. In other words, I hoped it was a replenishable rock.
Dropshotting the Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm with Steve LucarelliAround the rock, I was dropshotting the Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm (68L-series). I hook mine in the cheek, about an 1/8th to1/4 of an inch back on the side, like where the eye would theoretically be, just before the gill plate would be (if it had one). I go in the side and come out the middle of the flat top with the hook. It looks odd when you do it, but when you put it in the water with the water resistance and the way a dropshot hook sticks out from the line, it looks perfect! It allows the bait to posture horizontally in the water, so that it doesn't get tail heavy and point down at an angle to the line. It allows it to be perpendicular - to lay 90 degrees to the line. If you nose hook it, the salt in the bait makes it a heavy bait, and it causes it to lay down more vertically, and it just doesn't look natural. I don't like how it looks like that.
I also like to match the size of the forage. So that's why I used the Shad Shape Worm in this tournament, which is pretty small, but matched the forage. If they regurgitate something at the side of the boat or in the livewell, and it's small, I'm going to send a small bait back down to them, even with big fish. I'm trying to match the hatch. If you were to send down a 5" Senko or something that was too large, that's not matching the forage, and you've now diminished your odds to catch anything. If they see a 3" little minnow down there, even when they're full, and it's just sitting right there, even though they may be gorged with fish, they'll take another little minnow if it looks easy. So that's my theory on that one - if you are around big fish, they will take small baits. Key thing is to be around big fish, not small fish. In terms of giving it action, you have to give the fish what they want, but sometimes overshaking a dropshot rig is the biggest problem. I almost deadstick it on big waters like Champlain. You just want it to sit there and let the current or boat movement just move it gently, and you want it to be laying out perfect, which is what cheek-hooking it allows it to do. I often follow Charlie Brewer's do nothing theory - that less (action) is more. If it is down there, and it is rigged properly, it will act like a minnow. Charlie Brewer said, if you look at a minnow, it doesn't sit down there and shake constantly. It just sits there hardly moving at all. Maybe it will dart 6-8 inches and then become almost motionless again. For the most part, it's not down there doing a tarantella! But then again, if the bite is aggressive, you can do anything you want in terms of action. All they have to do is see it at that point. I use a #1 short shank Gamakatsu hook. I do use other size hooks, down to #6 and #4. Those are actually what I started out with years ago, but over time, we gravitated to the bigger hooks, especially for the bigger fish. We use the bigger hooks so it gets them right behind the teeth. If you use too small a hook, it gets them in the teeth, and the potential exists that there's some bone there. I like the hook to set in the soft section right behind the upper teeth pad. We do shift hook sizes accordingly, because the bigger the hook, the more effect it has on the bait too. So there are times with, say the 4" Slim Senko (9J) wacky style, I may set it 3 feet up from the dropshot sinker, and just lower the rod tip so that it starts to shimmy on the way down. Then I'll stay with the smaller hooks, say #4 or even #6. I don't want too big of a hook to affect it, I just want it to drift down like a dying fish, with nothing on it that impedes its action. On the other hand, If I am going to the Columbia River or to Lake Erie, I'm using #2's and up, just to have confidence to hook fish securely with the bigger hooks and get big fish in the boat. |
On one of the days, the second day of the tournament, that one rock was inundated with rock bass. They're a voracious, small but aggressive species, and they operate in huge schools. I think the rock bass may nip at the smallmouth because the smallmouth can't eat them, their fin rays and scales are too spikey, thorny and sharp. So they come in schools, and if they want an area, if there is bait there, I believe that the rock bass may drive the smallmouth away. So I knew I had to make an adjustment, and I started looking beyond the perimeter of the rock bass schools. I scouted out from 28 feet to 33 feet, and suddenly - there they were! The big smallmouth were still there, out beyond the rock bass. What the smallies were doing on the fishfinder display, my son Joe and I call it "pretzeling" or "noodling" where you'll see two or more fish together, doing figure-eights on the screen, and they kind of look like their paths intertwine, lacing together like vines or almost serpentine. The trails they leave on the screen look like wet spaghetti noodles, and when they start arcing up and down like that, those fish are feeding and you can catch them with anything. You can put a shoestring down there and catch them. It's almost unfair. Nine out of ten times, they're going to be big, and usually you can catch both of them, or all three or however many are down there. That's what I saw when I moved out to 33 feet, and I knew that they were mine. It was like catching fish in a barrel. We took off from the launch ramp at 6:30, and when I located them in 33 feet of water, my first fish was landed at 7:09. In about a 1/2 hour to 40 minutes, I was done. I had 16 to16-1/2 pounds in the boat.
I don't fish by blind-casting. I almost hunt for fish using the electronics. I put the trolling motor dial at about 40-50% power, and I'll just move around constantly with the dropshot in my hand, when all of a sudden I will see one, and I'll make the adjustment if I am going forward or backward, or if I am doing a forward sweep, a backward sweep, I just sweep back in forth in a slight fanning action, to cover as much bottom as possible - gently - because you still have to stop, and then you still want the fish underneath you inside your cone. If I have to, I will turn around to find him - he's there and not going anywhere. It's just like you are fishing in an aquarium. You just drop it down in front of them. I like the relatively new Yamamoto color - green pumpkin with red flake (color #318). I don't mind that one, but basically, it has to do with different hues of green for me. I will go all the way to the Baby Bass color (#305) if it is bright. First thing in the morning, overcast days, I go to dark green pumpkin (#297). Maybe some times they want to see a red flake in the green, but if I had to pick just one, I would go with the green pumpkin (#297). I usually use a 3/8 oz sinker on a big lake like Champlain, with 5 or 6 lb test Yamamoto Sugoi fluorocarbon leader and 15 lb test Berkley Spiderwire UltraCast braid. I never take the braid off the reel, and the older it gets, the better I like it. It doesn't end up with all the knots in it like mono or fluoro does. The braid accepts the twists and simply absorbs them. I use about a 10-12 foot Sugoi fluoro leader on it. I tie it together with a J-knot. I never worry about the knot, even on Lake Erie or Champlain with 4-pound smallmouth, the knot's fine. I don't swing them, and you have to know your equipment. Don't be in a rush, even if it takes you a couple of minutes to land a fish, the way they're hooked, they're not getting off, and if you have good equipment and your drag works, you just sit there and do whatever you have to do. The fish isn't going anywhere. If you try to horse a fish, that's when you strain everything, run the risk of the knot opening up, and it's just not worth it. |
Carolina Rig to the Rescue
On both days (as well as the third and final day), I also Carolina-rigged a 6-inch lizard and a smaller soft crayfish imitation in the grassy areas, pulling them through a certain kind of weed, popping them off the weeds to get a reaction strike. I culled up my total weight by about a pound or two every day doing this. However, I was actually struggling to keep these baits from balling up on the hook, to the point that the bite stopped in the grass for me. I tried to analyze what was going wrong - the hook was too heavy, causing the bait to bury into the grass so deeply that the force to pull it out of the grass also pulled the bait off the hook, until I switched over to a 2/0 Yamamoto Sugoi hook (59-series). The Carolina rig bite had been tough, but as soon as I changed over to the Sugoi hook, it was on! Designed by Gary Yamamoto and made by Gamakatsu, the 2/0 Sugoi is a lighter wire, but incredibly strong. I got a slower fall, the bait didn't bog down in the grass, and didn't get pulled off the hook any more. That Sugoi hook was exactly what I needed to pop it off the vegetation, without balling up, so it shot off the weeds quickly, and then suddenly stopped to drift and saunter slowly back to bottom - evoking an instinctive reaction strike.
The Rock Crumbles
I had 18-15 for five smallmouth on day one. Five more smallmouth for 17-11 on day two put me into 4th place at the end of day two, with one day left to fish. Meanwhile, my son Joe was leading it, in first place so far for both days.
The third and final day of the tournament, the rock was devoid of any life. We had a coastal hurricane coming up the eastern US shoreline. We got the east wind and showers all day, and the rock bass weren't even there, there was nothing. The key to that rock was bait, if the bait was there, you could definitely find something to keep you busy. On Lake Champlain, bait could be anything, there are more species in Lake Champlain - seventy - than any other lake in the country. Seventy species of fish, and when they are small enough, in the fry or fingerling stage, they are all on the menu, they all start out small and vulnerable to predation by bass. So you don't know what's down there in terms of forage, unless a fish chucks something up as it comes into the boat. With that being said, small yellow perch can be a big thing, and crayfish, but the yellow perch is 100% protein. You could have a livewell full of crayfish parts, but the amount of meat, and the effort that has to be exerted to get a crayfish, we feel that sometimes the bigger fish don't always eat crayfish. Don't get me wrong, the big ones do eat craws, but they are also the ones when you look in your livewell, you see a six-inch yellow perch sitting there, and that's 100% protein pay-off for the amount of energy - and a crayfish, when you think about it, is mostly shell, and you get about a fingertip's worth of solid meat in the tail for a lot of effort.
No Joy in Winning
Meanwhile, my son Joe was using a Yamamoto Flappin' Hog. He had zeroed in on the largemouth.
Mine were all smallmouth except for one green fish on the last day, when I had all 4 pounders because my total weight on day three came out to 20-06 pounds.
On the final day you weigh-in in order of what place you were on day two.
When I was weighing in the fish, on the final day, I was in fourth place, and in Stren events, you cannot disclose your weight to other anglers before weigh-in, it's against the rules. So I did not know what Joe had, and he did not know what I had, other than we both assumed we had good bags. Joe had a three pound lead at the end of day two, and he felt somewhat confident that cushion could carry him, until one of the other anglers weighed a 19-pound bag, and that rocked Joe. I could see he was trying to figure out all this fancy math in his head, trying to reckon if he had enough of a lead where he could still top that, and I think he felt he did. He didn't know I had 20 pounds and really, neither did I. I knew I had good fish, but honestly didn't think I had 20 pounds at that time. I had done my own math too, and felt Joey was going to win it. They were weighing each of my fish one-by-one, using a wet weigh-in with a water tank, and the first fish I slid onto the scales was over 4 pounds. And the second one was the same size. So far, two fish for like 8-07, and then I suddenly realized that the three that were left in my bag were the same size or bigger. So when I got to my fourth one, it was 16 pounds, or a 4 pound average, and I looked over at Joe, and he didn't know that I had a fifth one the same size, and when I looked at Joe, I reached in, and we were about 20 feet apart, and I just apologized, I said I am sorry, and he just smiled, and I think he knew, that a 20 pound bag from one of the anglers that were right beneath him, would had a chance to bump him out of first place. When I pulled out the largemouth, there was no joy there at all. I slid it in, the weighmaster said 20 pounds 7 ounces or something like that, and it broke my heart right there. I was just thinking about Joey, and it was like the air going out of the sails of a ship, both his and mine, it was just a place I did not want to be in at that moment.
Dads Have Dreams
Dads have dreams, and it was my dream to be on stage, and come in second place, with Joe coming in first place. I was having a very difficult time, I did not know what he had for weight, but his body, his face, it didn't look good, and I'm sure I looked worse. I know it wasn't about me, that if any competitor landed a 20 pound sack, I'm sure Joey would have looked devastated - I just wished it wasn't me.
Next, the angler who was in third place from the day before, he came up, then second place, and they didn't have near enough weight to beat Joey, so it was just between Joey and I, and when they asked him who do you think is going to win this, Joe? He said he thought a Lucarelli was going to come in first and second.
It was an interesting but not a happy embrace for me when I was announced the winner. It was a place I didn't want to be. It was my goal to cash a check, and because we were both doing so well, it was my dream to come in second place to him, and for Joe to be first place.
We are very tight knit family, my daughter, my son, my wife, my grandkids, we all live within 10 minutes of each other in New Hampshire. My familia, it's everything to me, it's about all that I've got, and being able to do that with my son, it's a great moment. I just wish the places had been reversed so that Joey won it.
Every parent can understand, you want to see your children do better than you did. I don't think any parent out there wants to best their child. You really don't.
So this tournament, it's not about winning for me. It's all about father and son. It's all about a dad's dream and loving to be around your kid, constantly seeing his achievements, and the fact that we both love fishing, just makes it so great.
There are some people that consider themselves millionaires because they have a portfolio of investments. I consider I'm a millionaire because of my family, I live for them, they'll keep me going for a long time. Thank you.
- Steve Lucarelli
Click here to read son Joe Lucarelli's story: