Jason Christie just gave us our first little shot of largemouth action, a solid 4-plus as his limit fish. He caught this fish flipping shallow vegetation, something we’re accustomed to seeing and hearing about every time the Elites come to Lake Champlain. However, this time things have been different.
Due to the placement of this event on the calendar and increasingly sophisticated electronics, smallmouth are dominating this event. The vast majority of the better smallmouth have made their way out to deeper water by this point in the summer, chasing bait in 20 to 60 feet. Prior to recent advancements in forward-facing sonar, these fish were uncatchable. Now though, they are aggressive and (relatively) easy to target, as they streak up and down through the water column.
These smallmouth being heavier and more catchable have made the largemouth nearly inconsequential in this event. To the point, the whole coverage crew perked up and relished every second of the one big largemouth bite we’ve seen on camera, through two days of competition.
