Rebels: Kicking Bass

Deep in the heart of Missouri’s Ozark Mountains­, a cool breeze blows across­­ Table Rock Lake, bringing with it a brilliant spring day. The sun is as bright as a baby’s smile. The hills, steep and verdant, rise up from the reservoir’s rocky shore, marking time by the lap, lap, lap of the rust-hued water. The soothing montage is broken only by the sight of the faux-French-Country McMansions that dot the surrounding ridge tops, the fading whine of distant outboard motors, and the porcine squeals of one bass fisherman.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Mike Iaconelli shouts. He is standing on the bow of his squat, bullet-shaped boat as it trolls one of Table Rock’s shallow inlets. His eyes are shrouded behind dark wraparound shades, and the bill of his camouflage Phillies hat is twisted slightly off-center. He bends down and pulls a large bass out of the water. “YEAAAAAAH!” he says again. “THAT’S the biggest FISH I’ve caught all WEEK!” He pumps his fist, then clamps his fingers around the fish’s outstretched lower lip. He holds the specimen up to inspect it more closely. Its distended flank, the color of lime Jell-O flecked with pepper, shimmers in the light. Iaconelli’s voice grows quieter, down to a volume approximating that of a drunken carnival barker: “I LOVE it. I LOVE. I LOVE it,” he says. “Fuck.” He makes this last word, somehow, sound like a term of endearment.

If you spend your free time playing tennis or golf, or knitting sweaters or collecting rocks, chances are you have never heard of Mike Iaconelli. If, however, you are one of the 34 million Americans who like to fish, especially for the little green monsters known as bass, you know that Iaconelli — pride of Runnemede, New Jersey — is a star. In six years as a professional, he has earned more than $730,000, and is currently 20th on pro bass fishing’s all-time money list (remarkable considering that he is 33 in a sport where skills tend to accumulate, rather than diminish, over time). Two years ago, he won the Bassmaster Classic, the Super Bowl of bass fishing, pocketing $200,000. Last year, he finished third in the fight for the Bassmaster Tournament Trail’s Angler of the Year, the sport’s most difficult achievement. This year, going into the final event on the Tournament Trail, he was in second place.

Yet despite his success, Iaconelli’s affectations have drawn the most attention. In a sport where body art is defined as a beard and a bad tan, Iaconelli comes proudly tattooed: a gargoyle on his left shoulder, a leaping bass on his right arm, an intricate tree of life sprawling across his back. His musical tastes lean toward Tupac rather than Toby Keith, and he dresses more like a skateboarder than a man who can expound for hours on the virtues of spinnerbaits. “At some point, I just said, ‘Fuck it, I’m me, I don’t care. I’m letting loose,’” he explains.
On the water, he is intense and emotional, and he tends to catalog his disappointments with baroque profanity and celebrate his triumphs with apoplectic glee. He screams and pumps his fists. Occasionally, he break-­dances. In an enterprise fat with the ethos of Red State America (bass fishing’s bible, Bassmaster magazine, openly endorsed the first George Bush for president), where courtesy, humility, and the ability to sound like you just stepped out of the pea patch have long been considered essential tools of the trade, Iaconelli is the object of fascination and contempt. Over the years, he has been called a child, a lout, and a “ghetto dancing punk.” Some fans admit that they actively root against him.