If you watched any of the recent St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Lake St. Clair and saw the incredible weights it was taking to be in contention, you had to be amazed.
I sure was.
Like, the first day the leader had 27 pounds and 64th place was around 20 pounds.
When I fished there in the early 2000s, 20 pounds was very rare. If you caught 20, it captured everyone’s attention.
For example, I won there in 2001 with 68-1 – and that was a four-day tournament. The Bassmaster Open, won by Jay Przekurat with 75-5, was a three-day tournament. My winning weight over four days would still have landed me in eighth place with an extra day of fishing.
St. Clair is truly one of the best fisheries in the country, but how is it that the weights have climbed steadily over the years?
For the same reason weights are going up on nearly all of the smallmouth fisheries.
While the introductions of non-native species like zebra mussels and gobies have been unfortunate from an ecological standpoint, they seemingly have helped smallmouth populations. The mussels helped clear the lakes, and the gobies have provided a high protein value to smallmouth that love to eat them.
When the gobies came on, scientists said it could kill the fishing on the Great Lakes because they are so invasive and prolific. Perhaps it has impacted other fish species negatively, but smallmouth have flourished.
Furthermore, many of the polluted waters have been cleaned up considerably, perhaps with help from the zebra mussels filtering out some of the nutrients. Equally important has been Ray Scott and B.A.S.S. efforts to push conservation measures and clean up the Great Lakes.
But those are not the only reasons we see more and bigger bass showing up at weigh-ins.
Think about this: Our boats and outboards are bigger and better to handle rough water. Believe me, St. Clair and related Great Lakes fisheries can get rough. In my day, transoms were cracking and boats were breaking down from guys trying to run in water those boats weren’t designed to navigate. Anglers are able to move around more freely.
The electronics are remarkably better than they were back in the 2000s. The “Live” sonar has helped, but even before it became a talking point, 2D sonar, down imaging and 360 made fish and structure detail far more visible.
Furthermore, our rods, reels, terminal tackle and line are significantly better. In my day, you didn’t dare trust 6- or 8-pound line for big bass in clear water, but now anglers are proficiently landing big fish on 4- and 6-pound line with limited issues.
Of course the learning curve has shortened as well. Bassmaster Magazine was our primary source for information in my early days. Now you have Bassmaster LIVE, social media, YouTube channels and more to teach you in a few hours what it took us years to learn.
It’s fun to reminisce about how things were 20 years ago, yet it exemplifies how much better bass fishing has become. Hats off to B.A.S.S. and other groups for taking care of our resource.
The good ol’ days are now, and they’re likely to continue thanks to those conservation efforts and a bass fishing industry that strives to improve the tools we use to catch more and bigger bass.
