PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. — Entering Championship Monday at the Tackle Warehouse Bassmaster Elite at Lake Champlain, Day 3 leader Ed Loughran III thought he needed another 20-pound bag to win his first blue trophy. So, when he finished with a 16-pound, 14-ounce limit of smallmouth, he was just hoping he would still finish in the Top 5.
It turned out he had the exact weight he needed.
With a four-day total of 80-12, the veteran angler from Richmond, Va., notched his first Elite Series title, edging out Canada’s Chris Johnston by 1 ounce to earn the $100,000 check and a blue trophy.
“I had zero thought that I had won. I was hoping to just stay in the Top 5,” Loughran said. “It’s unbelievable. I’ve never won a big tournament. I’ve had Top 5s in big tournaments … but I’m always a little short. I didn’t have any realistic expectation of winning one, but after yesterday I thought I might have a chance.
“The money will come and go, but that trophy will not go anywhere.”
Opening the tournament in 38th with 19-1, Loughran landed bags of largemouth weighing 22-15 and 21-14 to jump into the lead on Semi-Final Sunday. But if he didn’t make a critical move on Day 4, Loughran feels he wouldn’t have won.
Toward the end of the day, Loughran left his primary area and moved uplake to a spot he had not yet fished in the tournament. Just before he reached the spot he was intending to fish, he noticed a group of smallmouth on his forward-facing sonar that were piled up around several rocks.
“I sat there and caught a dozen fish,” Loughran said. “One was a 3-10 and I caught two other 3-pounders. Had that not happened, I would not have won. It is nuts. I hadn’t even fished it yet this week.”
A tidal river aficionado, Loughran started fishing Lake Champlain in 1991 and has grown to love the lake. This week, after missing the last two Elites due to medical issues, he traveled south to an area he had never fished before in an attempt to stay away from competitors fishing for Progressive Insurance Bassmaster Angler of the Year points.
Loughran described his best area as a rock ridge in 5 to 10 feet of water with milfoil beds in the vicinity. Using his Garmin LiveScope, he identified three high spots on the ridge that were holding the majority of the bass. The best part: he had the area all to himself.
“There was a lot going on. You had some creeks coming in and some milfoil beds around. You’ve got several high spots with chunk rock and grass mixed in,” he explained. “It was pretty protected, too. All of that offers really good habitat.
“If there was another angler in there, I wouldn’t have won and I wouldn’t have gotten a check.”
Smallmouth and largemouth inhabited the area, but the smallmouth stayed on one side of the ridge while the largemouth hunkered down on the other side. Loughran landed a mixed bag on Day 1, but on the second and third days he brought all largemouth to the scales, including a 5-12 on Day 3.
To generate most of his bites, Loughran dragged either a ½-ounce green pumpkin Missile Baits Ike’s Mini Flip or a ⅜-ounce homemade jig paired with either a Missile Baits Craw Father or Missile Baits Chunky D. He trimmed down the Chunky D to match the profile he felt the bass were eating.
He pitched those jigs using a 7-foot-6 heavy Shimano Expride rod paired with a Shimano Chronarch MGL 8:1:1 baitcasting reel and 20-pound Berkley fluorocarbon.
“I think these fish are eating on small crayfish,” Loughran said.
He also landed several key bass on a ½-ounce green pumpkin Z-Man Evergreen Chatterbait JackHammer with a Missile Baits Spunk Shad trailer in the goby bite color.
Once Loughran reached his primary area on the final day, the Virginia pro landed three smallmouth on consecutive casts around 8:45 a.m. After a short lull, he picked up a topwater walking bait and filled out his limit with two more smallmouth.
From there, however, the bite slowed down tremendously before Loughran executed his last-minute heroics with a drop shot rigged with a Missile Baits Bomb Shot in goby bite.
“The lake was off today for whatever reason,” he said. “I had one largemouth bite all day. It was terrible. Before, I was catching 20. Smallmouth had come in and taken over.”
Johnston, meanwhile, was just an ounce away from claiming his second career Elite Series trophy with bags of 20-0, 21-14, 19-8 and 19-5, totaling 80-11. There were several bass that came unglued this week that would have carried him past Loughran.
“I’m regretting a couple of the fish I lost the last two days,” the five-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier said. “Any of them would have done it for me. Being that close, it sucks. I’d rather lose by 5 pounds, to be honest. It is what it is. That’s fishing, and I’ll try to catch them next week.”
Most of the week, Johnston targeted smallmouth on deeper breaks in the northern section of Lake Champlain. Using his forward-facing sonar, he would comb large areas searching for quality smallmouth with a 4-inch minnow rigged on either a ⅜-ounce or ½-ounce head.
Johnston’s bass were feeding on perch and would move between 15 and 50 feet of water.
The smallmouth bite did not produce first thing on Day 4, so Johnston decided to fish for largemouth and lost two, one of which he believed would have helped his bag. He returned to his smallmouth waters and wrangled up an 18-pound limit before returning to a stretch of shallow reeds in an attempt to catch a kicker largemouth.
“(The smallmouth deal) wasn’t working. I probably gave it too long in hindsight,” he said. “The last hour I went back largemouth fishing and caught a 4-pounder that was pretty damn close, but not enough. One perch it spit up would have done it for me.”
Tennessee’s Robert Gee finished third with a total of 80-9, his third Top 5 of the season. Targeting smallmouth in the Inland Sea and Malletts Bay, the Knoxville rookie never left the Top 10 with bags of 21-1, 19-15, 19-13 and 19-12.
Ridges dropping from 35 feet to 50 feet with perch or alewives were the key areas for Gee. The bigger bass, Gee said, were eating the perch close to the bottom of the lake. He mid-strolled a 5-inch Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm on a ¼-ounce jighead to catch the majority of his smallies. A Juices Jig crappie/bass hair jig in the Tennessee shad color landed a couple of key bass as well.
Gee experienced his best day of smallmouth fishing on Monday morning. He has no idea how many bass he caught, but he quickly reached the 18-pound mark and was able to make several more key culls. Unfortunately, he could not find a 5-pound bass on the final day that would have lifted him to victory.
“It was probably the best day of smallmouth fishing I’ve ever had, numbers wise,” Gee said.
Canada’s Cory Johnston landed the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of Day 4, a 5-5 largemouth. New York rookie Kyle Patrick claimed Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the Tournament honors with a 6-2 largemouth he caught on Day 1, earning a total of 3,000 in bonuses. Patrick also claimed the $1,000 BassTrakk Contingency bonus for accurate weight recording.
Day 1 leader Seth Feider claimed the $2,000 bonus for the CrushCity Monster Bag of the Tournament with his 23-11 limit of largemouth from the first day.
Alabama’s Will Davis Jr took home an additional $3,000 for being the highest-placing entrant in the Toyota Bonus Bucks program, while Texas’ Chris Zaldain earned $2,000 for being the second-highest placing entrant.
As part of the Yamaha Power Pay program, Gee earned an additional $4,000 while South Carolina’s Patrick Walters claimed an additional $1,500 for being the second-highest placing entrant.
With one event remaining on the Elite Series schedule, 2024 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic presented by Jockey Outdoors champion Justin Hamner still holds the lead in the Progressive Insurance Bassmaster Angler of the Year race with 671 points while Johnston is second with 658 points. Tennessee’s Jacob Foutz is third with 652 points, South Carolina rookie JT Thompkins is fourth with 634 points and Illinois rookie Trey McKinney is fifth with 633 points.
Thompkins leads the Dakota Lithium Elite Series Rookie of the Year race followed by McKinney in second. Tennessee’s John Garrett is third with 622 points, Alabama’s Wesley Gore is fourth with 621 points and Tyler Williams is fifth with 594 points.
The Adirondack Coast and City of Plattsburgh hosted the tournament.
