Bull Shoals, Arkansas– Congratulations are due to Brandon Palaniuk for his first Elite Series win at the Trokar Quest on Bull Shoals Lake. Brandon pulled off a wire to wire victory to take home the top prize as well as secure himself a spot in the 2013 Bassmaster Classic.
In our opinion, this is a unique victory in more ways than one. In case you haven’t heard, Brandon managed to skewer himself with a hook in the finger that required him to weigh in early one day so that he could visit the local emergency room to have it removed and be ready to fish the next. Even with this time handicap, he never relinquished the lead.
Another interesting part of the story was his choice of baits. Brandon caught the majority of his fish on the new Rapala Ikes Custom Ink DT Series Crankbaits. These colors were designed by none other than Michael Iaconelli, another star of the Elite Series whose affinity for tweaking existing lures is well known.
Britt Myers, who finished second in the event was also using these same crankbaits a good part of the time. While he chose the DT6 and DT10 to Brandon’s DT16, the fact of the matter is that these lures produced well for the top two finishers in this event. This says something about the effectiveness of the baits and certainly validates the time and effort put in by Ike and the folks at Rapala who came up with these finishes.
We haven’t gotten Ike’s Custom Ink baits on the water yet but you can bet, we will be sooner than later.
See ya’ on the water …