Lester Looking to Turn Bronze into Gold
Team Toyota pro Brandon Lester caught over 21 pounds of smallmouth bass on day one of the Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Elite on Lake Champlain, which had him in 5th place at the conclusion of the weigh-in. Lester has fished countless bodies of water throughout his life, 10 years of which have been as a touring professional angler, but Lake Champlain ranks atop them all as his absolute favorite fishery.
This unique body of water that straddles the New York-Vermont border is a 17-hour haul in the Tundra from Lester’s home in middle Tennessee, but this is one long-distance relationship that Lester is OK with.
“This place represents what bass fishing should be in my opinion,” Lester offered. “You can run down the lake and from 40 feet of water to four inches of water if you see something that looks like it should have a bass on it, it probably does. It’s such a diverse fishery, with a guy being able to be competitive in major tournaments with largemouth or smallmouth.”
This diversity that Lester is so fond of is a huge reason why dozens of his peers are quick to claim Champlain as their favorite place to bass fish as well. Not only can anglers catch heavy mixed bags of either species from these clear, fertile waters; but they can truly pick their poison when it comes to lure choices and techniques. The opportunities abound on Lake Champlain.
Though Lester has experienced a lot of success targeting largemouth here in the past, he came into this tournament solely focused on smallmouth bass. While Lester isn’t an Olympian, at least until they add bass fishing as an Olympic sport, he does believe bronze is his best chance at gold this week. Only Lester’s gold would come in the form of his second blue trophy.
“Based off last year’s Elite and what I learned in practice I felt like I could be more consistent with smallmouth,” Lester explained. “I had over 20 pounds of brown fish two of our three days in practice and I feel like that’s the number I need to hit to be competitive and give myself a chance come Championship Monday.”
Lester knew weights would be extremely tight this week and after what he saw in practice, he believed that daily 20-lb benchmark is what it would take to separate himself and keep him near the top of the leaderboard. The even-keeled pro is primarily employing Lowrance Active Target and a few finesse tactics to pick off nomadic smallies roaming the depths of Champlain.
Oddly enough, Lester has openly struggled with FFS when fishing for largemouth, at least when it comes to excelling in tournaments dominated with this approach. But it’s quite the opposite when focusing on smallmouth with the tool, as is evident by his efforts on Champlain and a top 10 finish on Lake St. Clair last year.
“I can’t really explain it, but I have a blast chasing around smallmouth with FFS,” Lester said. “I feel like I understand how to use it to catch smallies and I don’t have to fight the same mental battles I do when using FFS to target largemouth. I guess it’s probably due to how I grew up fishing for largemouth, and I don’t have that experience or history to fall back on with brown ones. Regardless, it sure is fun to come up North and catch these things with light line and Active Target.”
