Coming into the Alabama Swing of the Bassmaster Elite Series, I just wanted to survive and move on to the Northern Swing with good points. I exceeded my expectations by having strong finishes at Wheeler and Smith lakes.
I did especially well at Smith, finishing in 13th place. That gives me the luxury of fishing the final events at Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River without as much pressure regarding making it to the Bassmaster Classic. I’ll be free to focus on winning one of those tournaments rather than on how many Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year points I need.
I’ve tried not to look ahead and think about fishing for smallmouth all season. I’m excited that I can now focus on them. I’m packing my boat with smallmouth tackle, including G. Loomis rods, Power Pro braid, Shimano Mastiff FC Fluorocarbon and a variety of finesse baits.
Many of those baits will be stealth series finesse lures from Xzone. When it comes to catching big smallmouth bass, a bait’s size profile comes way before color or anything else. I catch more big ones on 2.5- to 3-inch baits.
I believe Xzone’s new 2.75-inch Scented Stealth Minnow will account for many of my bass at Champlain and the St. Lawrence. I’ll be fishing it with a drop shot and on a jig head.
The Stealth Minnow produced a lot of spotted bass for me at Smith Lake, which bolstered my confidence in it. This bait will be available to the public on Aug. 8.
I didn’t pre-practice for Champlain because it’s hard to know how much things are going to change. A lot of Champlain’s smallmouth suspend in the middle of the lake where they cruise and chase bait. I’m just going to dump the boat in and go fishing.
I was on the St. Lawrence River for a week before the cutoff. I put about 60 hours of idling time on my Mercury looking for areas that might be good during the tournament.
I really don’t know the St. Lawrence all that well. The week I spent there should give me a better idea of where the big smallmouth live. I had a blast fishing a one-day bass derby there. I won with 27 pounds of smallmouth.
That’s a bit of a confidence booster. I caught them shallow, in 4 to 8 feet of water, but they won’t be doing that when the Elite tournament takes place in mid-August.
Then again, the smallmouth on the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario don’t all do the same thing. The pros will catch them doing a little bit of everything from the shallows to 50 feet deep. That place is chock full of fish.
The smallmouth there are mostly bottom related because they feed on gobies. They’ll suspend 10 feet off the bottom, but they’re typically relating to a boulder, rockpile or some other bottom structure.
The tournament is taking place out of Waddington this year so I don’t think the weights will be as heavy as last year when we fished out of Clayton. Clayton is much closer to Lake Ontario.
It’s 70 miles from Waddington to the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. If it’s rough, it might take an hour and 45 minutes to get there. Then there’s the additional time it takes to get to wherever your bass are in Lake Ontario.
I believe someone will win the tournament with 99 to 102 pounds, but you won’t see four Century Club belts like you did last year. While it is possible to catch over 25 pounds in the river, there aren’t as many big smallmouth in the river to produce that kind of weight for three or four days.
It will be interesting to see how many pros make the run to Lake Ontario. If it’s really blowing, we might not be able to make it out there. Even when it’s calm, you won’t have much fishing time if you make that run.
That being said, I don’t care if I have only an hour to fish, I’ll be running to Lake Ontario.
