“They’re not easy to catch, I can’t afford to lose one,” said Chris Johnston as he wrangled a big smallmouth from Lake Ontario. The 2020 St. Lawrence Elite Champion has as much knowledge about this place as anyone, and he sat in 2nd coming into today. He knows the big, big ones, the “heavy 5s”, are few and far between. So you’ve got to make every bite this size count.
That’s what we’ve seen almost every angler on camera do through the first two days, through the last few events for that matter. These guys are as good as any in the world at putting big smallmouth in the boat, using light line and in quite the adverse conditions at times. Across the St. Clair and Champlain Elites and halfway through this one, there might have been five big fish lost total, maybe.
The big ones are scattered here, but the top contenders are still sliding them into the boat. Patrick Walters, Kyle Welcher, Kyoya Fujita, and Gerald Swindle all have 5-pounders in the boat already, Welcher with two.
