By Louie Stout
Cody Steckel
You probably don’t know Cody and Mike Steckel but you will want to meet them someday. They are a couple of Nevada anglers who visit Michiana each summer.
Cody is a Bassmaster Open angler and Mike is his dad, who fishes the Open as a co-angler. They fish major western circuits, so when they’re here visiting family in southwest Michigan, they try to find time to fish a tournament or two.
For example, they fished Arjay’s events on Diamond and Templene a couple years ago and finished in the money both times. They also have won big bass and finished third in a SMAC tourney on Millpond.
IKA Rigs
And, they do it largely with western tactics, like Neko rigs, Slim Senkos rigged wacky on drop-shot rigs and a lure rarely mentioned around here – the Yamamoto Ika.
“A lot of guys in this area throw Chatterbaits or some kind of frogs, so we try to show the fish something different,” says Cody.
The Steckels have been fishing the IKA for about five or six years. It’s one of their favorite lures on grass lakes.
The bait is similar to what you might call a solid tube bait with a skirted end. When rigged weightless, the bait glides as it falls. As goofy as it may look, it’s got good action and fish seem to love it.
Texas-rigged IKA
They rig it Texas style with a 4/0 EWG Gamakatsu. The hook goes in through the skirted end and the eye of the hook is completely embedded.
“When Texas rigging and pushing the hook through the body of the bait, don’t put the hook in the center of the bait,” explains Cody. “The hook-up ratio is low when you do that. If you go to 1/3 of the side, the bait will fold and get a better hook-up. I skin hook the barb in the top of the bait to keep it weedless.”
IKA with Open Hook
When fishing open water and away from potential snags, he also will rig it with screw lock (like a hitchhiker) and an exposed circle hook with a weed guard. It will give it free motion and limit line twist.
He fishes the Ika on 20-pound PowerPro Super Slick braid with a 10 to 12 pound fluorocarbon leader. He likes throwing it in pads or over weed beds, twitching it so the bait rises and falls.
“The bites are a little ‘tick’ or the line starts swimming off,” he says. “It’s amazing how many bites you can get on that thing.”
When he’s fishing eight feet or less he doesn’t add a weight to the rig. It’s heavy enough to cast without weight. Anything deeper than eight, he will put a 1/32-ounce nail weight in the non-skirted end.
Like most Yamamoto Baits, it tears up easily and you’ll catch a variety of species with it. But it is as fish catcher than can make a difference when the bite is tough or you want to show the fish something different.