Smallmouth stole the show on Day 1 or the St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Leech Lake presented by SEVIIN. In fact, the entire Top 10 had bags of all brown fish, which is a bit of a surprise given how largemouth have historically been the targeted species on Leech Lake.
Longtime pro Mike McClelland has unlocked the best largemouth only pattern so far, landing 19 pounds, 5 ounces to enter the final day in 19th place.
The Blue Eye, Mo pro had never been to Leech Lake before it was announced as a destination for the Opens this year. So, he spent five days in Minnesota before the off-limits period to grasp what could happen once the tournament arrived.
“It has so much good shoreline cover in it, the rice, reeds, buggy whips and so many different things that I kind of got caught up in it during prepractice. I was catching 50 or 60 fish a day but it was tough to catch 15-inch fish.”
As he continued to prefish and then again during official practice, he moved further off the bank and discovered many of the bigger largemouth are in offshore milfoil flats. He has flipped a ¾-ounce to 1-ounce jig or punch rig paired with a Big Bite Baits YoDaddy trailer.
In clearer water, McClelland would generally lean towards a more finesse presentation, but this week he has found the bigger the jig, the better bites he’ll get.
“There are little groups of them out there,” McClelland said. “You’ll get five or 10 bites without moving the boat sometimes. It is a lot of fun. I caught around 60 bass and 35 keepers. It was a pretty crazy day. That is the difference between being on the bank versus being off the bank. It is crazy how many of the ones off the bank are keepers.”
Much like the smallmouth, the largemouth are fat and healthy as well with their diet of crawfish. McClelland has seen these crawfish swimming around in broad daylight.
“It is slammed full with crawfish,” he said. “You’ll get on flats sometimes and you can see 100s of them scurrying around on the bottom. I’m sure that’s what a lot of these fish are eating. I’ve never been on a lake where you just see them.”
