Chris Zaldain is one of our coming-of-age veterans on the Bassmaster Elite Series. He’s been hard at it now for 11 years, he’s built a career with the B.A.S.S shield on his chest and he’s just one of the household names that’s out of the running for the 2024 Bassmaster Classic. Unless, that is, he can win here this week.
A win on the St. Lawrence River is an automatic berth into the 2024 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic at Grand Lake, regardless of where the angler finishes in the Progressive Angler of the Year points race.
Zaldain made the longest run (to my knowledge) of any angler today, some 70 miles or so out into Ontario. He busted a 20-pound limit in 34 minutes. But as good as this fishery is, that limit wasn’t going to be strong enough to keep him in contention. However, he’s since added a 5-0, 4-12, 4-12 and 4-9, culling all but one fish (another 4-12) from his early limit.
This now has Zaldain in the running for the VMC Monster Bag of Day 2. He’s unofficially moved up from 27th to 7th on BassTrakk. His day is done today, as he heads back towards weigh-in. But with plenty of giant smallmouth available on Ontario to piece together a 30-pound limit, he’s legitimately in contention to have another strong day and a magical one to pull this off and fish his way into the Classic.
