Most anglers thought they’d need to average 18 pounds a day to make the Top 12 cut at Lake St. Clair this week, 19 pounds tops. But two anglers topped a 20-pound average and didn’t make the 12 cut – 13th place Jonathon VanDam (60-5) and 14th place Brandon Coulter (60-4). That’s, uh, remarkable, unbelievable, extraordinary – pick your own adjective.
It appears the best was saved for the last regular season event of the Bassmaster Elite Series. Lake St. Clair’s Day 3 totals continued its streak of top marks. As you can see in the “cut weights” chart below, nowhere else this season could you average 20 pounds for three days a miss the Top 12 cut.
Note: Because there are 108 anglers of the original 110 competing now, the Day 2 cut this week was the top 50 anglers, rather than 51, as it had been in the previous eight events. For comparison’s sake, here are the 51st place weights on the first two days and the Day 3 12th place weights of the nine regular season Elite Series events this season.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| 51st | 51st | 12th | |
|
Cherokee Lake |
13-01 | 25-02 | 46-03 |
|
Lake Okeechobee |
13-10 | 27-14 | 54-02 |
|
Toledo Bend Reservoir |
13-12 | 26-04 | 46-14 |
|
Ross Barnett Reservoir |
11-05 | 22-14 | 42-11 |
|
Sam Rayburn Reservoir |
15-12 | 32-04 | 56-06 |
|
Lake Dardanelle |
11-12 | 21-10 | 42-06 |
|
St. Lawrence River |
17-10 | 34-13 | 59-15 |
|
Lake Champlain |
16-09 | 32-00 | 54-04 |
|
Lake St. Clair |
17-12 | 34-15 | 60-09 |