Wheeler Cautious as He Looks for Michigan Changeup
Forgive Jacob Wheeler for not being a trusting soul, but he’s seen a few miles of river water roll under the angling bridge.
While most of the angling world might be expecting a smallmouth fish catching derby in Michigan, Wheeler wasn’t so sure that he’s buying into that notion, especially when it comes to fishing in Major League Fishing competition like he’s doing in Alpena, Mich. during the 2017 MLF GEICO Select Challenge Cup event.
Why is that?
For starters, Wheeler is a pretty smart cookie when it comes to this professional angling thing, already amassing more than $1.5 million in career earnings in a six-year long career.
He started his amazing run back in 2011 when he became the youngest angler to ever win the FLW Tour’s BFL All-American event.
And then he followed that up in 2012 by going wire-to-wire to win the FLW Tour’s coveted Forrest Wood Cup championship on Georgia’s Lake Lanier.
Add in his two Bassmaster Elite Series wins – one at the 2014 BASSfest tournament on Tennessee’s Chickamauga Lake and another at Tennessee’s Cherokee Lake to start off the 2017 tournament season – and it’s easy to forget that Wheeler’s impressive resume belongs to a 26-year old angler.
But the real reason that Wheeler was looking for a changeup pitch in Michigan was because the last time the MLF crew visited the friendly community of Alpena, Kevin VanDam put on a smallmouth bass catching clinic for the ages.
In doing so, KVD rolled to a record-setting Championship Round catch of
So good was VanDam’s beat down on the Championship Day field that KVD ended up winning the 2014 MLF Summit Cup by a stunning 39-pounds, 12-ounces over the day’s runner-up Greg Hackney.
And mind you, Hackney had a great day in his own right, capturing second place with a 43-pound, 3-ounce effort, nearly 15-pounds ahead of everybody else.
But it’s that very success that MLF anglers enjoyed in Alpena a few years ago – almost exclusively on smallmouth bass – that had Wheeler somewhat leery about what to expect.
“I took everything that I saw (on the MLF television episodes from that event) with a grain of salt,” Wheeler said. “Knowing these guys (at MLF) like I do, if they’re going to let you do something like that, then they’re going to switch it up on you, too.”
Meaning that Wheeler wouldn’t be surprised if the MLF pros come to Alpena this week expecting to catch a lot of smallmouth bass just like KVD did a few years ago, only to be put on some largemouth bass rich water instead.
“They try to make it as level as possible,” Wheeler said.
Ok, fair enough, MLF Commissioner Don Rucks and his staff do go to great lengths to keep the playing field level and to keep the anglers in the dark about where they’ll be fishing until their boat is actually on the water.
But it is northern Michigan and there should be at least some smallmouths to target, right?
“I’m sure there are both (in these lakes up here), because 90-percent of these lakes in this part of the country have both,” Wheeler said. “But it ultimately comes down to what’s the most predominant species (in a lake that we fish). The guy that can do that the quickest is probably going to do pretty well.”
Knowing that smallmouth bass will be in play at least some of the time in Alpena – if not most of the time – one would have to think that Wheeler felt pretty confident about his chances to succeed.
After all, much as VanDam is a northern angler who grew up fishing these natural lakes in the Great Lakes region, so too is Wheeler since he grew up in Indiana en route to becoming one of the sport’s most successful young pros.
If smallmouths do in fact rule the day when Wheeler fishes, then yes, he feels pretty confident.
“Once you get to these natural lakes up north, it’s a little bit different (for smallmouths) than it is down south,” he said. “Once you start getting into northern Indiana, these fish up here start to act more like a natural lake smallmouth (as opposed to a reservoir smallmouth down south).
“Up here, they don’t have creek channels or the depth that they do down south,” he added.
“They have a lot of flats and stuff like that. That’s how they feed, they wolf pack up and they get together and they keep on rolling down a grassline, and they might feed on crayfish, they might feed on alewives or feed on whatever is in their way.”
How did Wheeler plan to target these Michigan smallies? By fishing a variety of baits designed to help him search a lot of nooks and crannies until he finds a few hungry fish.
“The biggest thing about smallmouths is that you’ve got to cover a lot of water to find them,” he said.
And as long as Wheeler doesn’t find himself looking at a change-up pitch from the MLF staff this week, look for the Indiana pro to do just that.
And to catch a lot of bass, just like KVD, Greg Hackney and other MLF pros did a few years back on their visit to Alpena.
Because as it turns out, Wheeler is pretty good at this bass catching thing too.