Elite

St. Clair: Social media roundup

See the social media posts made before and during practice for the 2023 AFTCO Bassmaster Elite at Lake St. Clair.

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Captions by
Shaye Baker
The northern swing of the 2023 Bassmaster Elite Series has begun. Most anglers, like Marc Frazier here, were all smiles as they made their way to the cooler temps of Michigan for the 2023 Bassmaster Elite at St Clair.
One angler, Austin Felix, had his parade rained on by a Chicago City bus.
Felix is fine, but his rigged was rendered useless.
In an awesome show of support, Phoenix contacted one of their dealers in Illinois (Bedford Sales and Outdoors) and had them take Felix’s boat in at 3 am to begin scavenging equipment off of it, while simultaneously having a brand new 920 Elite Phoenix driven up from the factory to get Felix out on the water as soon as possible.
Not the way Felix wanted to start his event, but he’s very thankful that he’s fine and that he’ll be able to compete this week. You can find more on this story on Felix’s social media.
Switching gears, this pic screams shenanigans, as Matt Robertson and Cory Johnston link backup after the midseason break.
Derek Hudnall is happy to just be in a hoody and out of hot south Louisiana.
But now there seem to be shenanigans happening here too.
Time for a haircut from certified (non-certified) barber John Crews.
Hudnall has the spinning gear rigged up and ready to go. 
Brandon Lester takes in an unfamiliar site from his house on the lake, as practice draws near. 
Chad Pipkens is ready to back her in and get back going. 
Cody Huff is the first to gives us a glimpse of the fishery. Lake St. Clair, as well as the Great Lakes of Huron and Erie and the rivers that connect them are all up for grabs this week. 
It’s been abnormally calm out on St. Clair through practice. 
Beautiful sunrises shared by several anglers. 
Glass slick conditions are unusual here. 
And though calm and sunny conditions have persisted through the first two days, storms are predicted for the final day of practice on Wednesday.  
Lee Livesay with a big one of the wrong variety. Musky bite bass baits too here, and bass. These toothy critters are known for highjacking an angler’s catch halfway back to the boat. 
Brandon Palaniuk found something floating in the water. 
A birthday balloon that was either turned loose or got away from someone. A good reminder to not let these go up, cause they come down somewhere. 
Palaniuk also found something else, loads of lake flies. 
These bugs were bugging Crews too. 
And he showed us how they make an absolute mess. 
The bugs get all over everything. 
Jay Przekurat is having to deal with them too, stating this is the worst hatch of bugs he’s ever seen. 
Mark Menendez ran into them as well. Hailing from Kentucky, Menendez has no doubt capitalized on mayfly hatches in the past. These insects are of a different variety, but it’ll be interesting to see if an angler can find a feeding frenzy happening on these bugs somewhere this week. 
Jonathan Kelley decided to use his AquaView to take a look beneath the surface. 
Chris Zaldain used this camera system as well to locate a few nice smallmouth. 
Here’s what one looks like in the boat, courtesy of Bernie Schultz. This one fell for a Ned rig, one of the more popular baits of choice here. The drop shot being another favorite on St. Clair and the surrounding fisheries. 
Seth Feider is happy to be back in bronze back country. Feider loves fishing for smallmouth, and has already won an Elite event here in 2019. 
Tyler Rivet getting a jab in on his roommate, Brock Mosley. 
Mosley turns loose a nice one of his own. Each roommate notched his first Elite win this season, Rivet on Lake Okeechobee and Mosley on the Sabine River. 
And we leave you with this beautiful smallmouth from Darold Gleason. The fish are a little lighter this year on average, per reports from Chris Johnston. You can read that article on bassmaster.com. You can also find a video update on the site from Jay Przekurat, as he offers up his mid-practice report from St. Clair. Tune in Thursday at 7:00 am EDT to see how this one begins to shake out. 

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