Big, strong smallmouth bass – that’s what the St. Lawerence River is famous for, wolfpacks of brown bass built tough from a life fighting current. But don’t be surprised to see a multitude of largemouth bass weighed-in over the next four days. The last time the Elite Series was here in 2015, the third and fourth place finishers – Greg Hackney and Brandon Card, respectively – got on an increasingly good largemouth bass bite. Both were using a topwater frog. And the word after practice was the frog bite is on again – big time.
Cliff Crochet, a noted frog man, didn’t target largemouth bass here in 2015. He finished in 91st place after concentrating on smallmouths.
“I tried to play by the rules, and it burned me,” Crochet said. “So this time I’ve decided to fish for largemouths, no matter what. The good thing is that every time we’ve come here, I’ve caught largemouth in the same places. I didn’t scout all of those places in practice this week. I checked a couple of them, just to see if they were there. I left some of them alone because once you catch ’em, they’re gone.”