When the Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series schedule comes out each year, I’m sure a lot of anglers look to see where we’ll be starting our season. I’m exactly the opposite: I want to know where we’ll be ending up.
Specifically, I look to see if we’ll make a couple of stops in Upstate New York. Ever since the first time I fished there it’s been one of my favorite places to spend time.
Fortunately, this year both Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River are on the schedule, and after a long break since the Pasquotank River, that’s where we’re headed next. Not only am I excited about it, but I think fans should be too. That’s because I believe we’ll see a lot of exceptional performances doing vastly different things.
Of course, we won’t have forward-facing sonar in the first event and we will at the second one, but that’s not the only reason they’ll be so engaging. It’s because they’re vast playing fields and while a few boats may pile up in certain areas, they typically fish big. You can expect some guys to slow down and drop shot or fish a jig and minnow, but I expect bass fans will also get a heavy dose of shallow-water power fishing. I’ve had a number of Top 10 finishes on those two waterways, and they’ve generally come with topwaters, crankbaits and jerkbaits.
I call the St. Lawrence the “Sam Rayburn for smallmouth.” In case you don’t know, that’s high praise in my book. But if you haven’t caught St. Lawrence smallmouth, they’re unlike the brown fish anyplace else. I’ve caught plenty of big ones in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, but nowhere are they as mean and hyper as on the St. Lawrence. Not even on other lakes in New York like Champlain. They’ll jump 4 or 5 feet in the air and then twist and turn and battle until they have nothing left to give.
That’s cool, but it’s also a problem, because you invariably end up losing some of them — particularly when cranking. They absolutely smash a Strike King 5XD up there, but landing them is a different story altogether. I’ve made some adjustments to my gear, including a new longer, heavier Lew’s CC6 cranking rod that I believe will minimize my fish losses. I’m excited to put it to the ultimate test.
As I wrote above, the field will be able to spread out over these two fisheries. There have been days on both where I saw few or no boats. I love that, and I love big waterways — it’s how I grew up, fishing places like Rayburn and Falcon and Amistad.
But even after years of traversing those big bodies of water, I still don’t love it when it gets rough. I’m hoping that we left the roughest water of the year behind at the Pasquotank. I made a long run there and beat myself up pretty good. It was worth it to get a quality finish and also because I got to see what my boat can really do. This is my first season in a Bass Cat Lynx, and I simply never expected it would handle the nasty stuff as well as it has. There’s something about that hull design that simply cuts big waves and somehow still stays dry.
It means that no matter where I find fish or how far I have to go, I never have to worry about making it there and back comfortably and in one piece. Yes, at some point we’re going to see waves up north. That’s a given.
All of that combined has me anxious to get where it’s cooler and the fish are just about always chewing. I like the fact that I get to fish the way I want and can expect to be in the mix. That’s the way it should be on the Elite Series and why I look forward to making that long drive as often as they’ll put them on the schedule.
