Matt Lee continues to climb in the standings of the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year race. He was 47th place yesterday and got a huge lift after landing in 7th place in the tournament standings. That moved him inside the Classic cut in 32nd place. He just briefly took the lead before getting knocked down to second by his brother.
“The calmer the better for me. I’m fishing deep, from 12-35 feet and it makes a huge difference with lure presentation.”
Matt shared those thoughts with me this morning.
The reason why he likes the calm wind is boat control. He is making very precise casts to fish holding tight to cover. Wind and waves make detecting strikes in the deeper water more difficult, just like keeping the boat in place over the cover.
Matt’s only previous tournament here was the 2014 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Open. Ironically, a 28th-place finish is helping him today.
“I’m using some old waypoints that worked well back then.”
He added, “the post-spawn smallmouth are really skinny, and I’m also catching largemouth from the same areas.”
Adding weight to his lures puts his chosen bait into the deeper water strike zones favored by the smallmouth.