Elite

Big bass of Lake St. Clair

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Captions by
Mike Suchan
Dock talk before the AFTCO Bassmaster Elite at Lake St. Clair centered on how the smallmouth still needed to put on some weight. Although skinnier than when the Elites visited the heart of Great Lakes fishing in the past, they still cracked them, setting the high weight mark on the fishery. By targeting bigger bass in Canadian waters, first-year Elite Joey Cifuentes won his second Elite with 91 pounds, 8 ounces. In an event with tight weights, limits every day and “only” 19 pounds sending you home, those with multiple big bass separated themselves from the field. Let’s take a look at the impact big bass had.
Tyler Rivet, winner of the first 2023 Elite on Lake Okeechobee, starts the big hit parade with a 5-0. All 102 anglers caught limits on Day 1, with an average weight of 3-13. Rivet’s biggest helped him total 18-11, but with no other bigs, that put him behind the curve at 57th as a surprising 33 anglers topped 20 pounds.
Jason Christie got his work done on Day 1. Sitting outside the cut to qualify for the 2024 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic in his home state, Christie weighed 23-14 to stand second. He didn’t top 20 pounds again, falling to finish 21st. That jumped the 2022 Classic champ nine spots to 37th in the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings and inside the cut to fish on Grand Lake out of Tulsa, where he’s had close misses.
Cole Sands wasn’t having the rookie season he had hoped, standing 57th in AOY, but the Calhoun, Tenn., pro landed this 5-9 in a bag of 21-4 that put him 16th. Sands topped 20 pounds the next two days to finish 23rd, also climbing nine spots to 49th in AOY. He has to make up about 30 points to be in the top 41, the current cut to qualify for the Classic.
Brandon Card caught a pair of 4-8 class fish that put him sixth after Day 1 with 22-9. The Salisbury, N.C., veteran followed with limits of 21-14 and 20-4, missing a Top 10 appearance by 9 ounces. Card solidified his hopes for a seventh Classic berth by  improving 12 spots to 16th in points.
Looking forward to smallmouth fisheries, Cooper Gallant lived up to his billing. The Canadian rookie “cracked” a 5-4 in his Day 1 bag of 22-14 to stand fourth. With 21-14 and 22-1, Gallant stayed in the top five and made Championship Sunday just 1-10 from the lead. Vying to join Cifuentes and Will Davis Jr. as the third rookie winner this year, the 25-year-old brought in 20-14 to finish fourth with 87-11. The finish catapulted the 2022 Cherokee Opens winner 18 spots in AOY points to 25th as he vies for his second Classic.
This 5-7 helped Bill Lowen start 11th with 22-2. The veteran from Brookville, Ind., couldn’t top 20 pounds again, but his 33rd-place finish moved him closer to his 12th Classic. Lowen came in 52nd in AOY and now stands 44th, needing to make up about 15 points.
Kyle Welcher led the AOY standings by 12 points before St. Clair. Despite a solid 19-12 that included a 4-ounce fish-care penalty, he fell into a tie with Brandon Cobb after Day 1. A subpar Day 2 dropped him 15 points behind Cobb. The pro from Opelika. Ala., just made the 50 cut at 49th, then took advantage to gain back five points as he rose to finish 44th.
Brandon Cobb of Greenwood, S.C., led AOY for three events before a 91st on the Sabine put him behind Welcher. With 20-8 then 21-12, Cobb was 22nd after two days, flipping his deficit. With only 18-9 on Semifinal Saturday, Cobb dropped to finish 31st. With Welcher 13 spots back, Cobb left St. Clair with 573 AOY points, one more than Welcher.
Rookie Joey Cifuentes III, who won at Lake Seminole in his second Elite entry, started St. Clair in fifth with 22-10, including a big of 5-6. While many anglers stayed close to the Brandenburg Park takeoff in Anchor Bay, Cifuentes was among those who ventured south into deeper Canadian waters.
Two-time Elite winner Bryan Schmitt of Deale, Md., was among those plying Anchor Bay, and he caught the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of Day 1, a 6-1 that helped him weigh 23-3 to stand third.
Shane LeHew took the BassTrakk lead momentarily with a pair of 5-pounders. When the Catawba, N.C., pro’s bass hit the scales, he held the Day 1 lead with 24-3. With 18-14 on Day 2, LeHew fell to 14th. LeHew made a bid for Championship Sunday with 21-4 but came up a pound short to finish 14th. Despite the great finish, he only moved up two spots to 11th in AOY, 67 points behind the lead and well on pace to qualify for his fifth Classic.
Canadian pro Chris Johnston, who finished sixth in the 2020 Elite on St. Clair, missed the boat on Day 1, bringing in 18-10 to stand 58th and falling from 39th to outside of Classic contention in the points. Rally time. And rally Johnston did, weighing 22-12 then 20-3 to finish 26th. He jumped to 31st in points with Lake Champlain and his home water of the St. Lawrence River to come.
Just 6 ounces above 20 pounds and in 30th after Day 1, Bryan New moved to 10th on Day 2 with 23-12. New, with his wife Brittany at home expecting any day and delivering Monday with him by her side, dropped to 19th with 19-0 on Semifinal Saturday, but he left himself some hope for a fourth Classic appearance. Standing 101st in AOY after Santee Cooper, New has gained 10 spots in each of the past three tournaments to stand 60th.
Skylar Hamilton made some noise on Day 2 with these 5-pound class bass that gave him 23-4, one of six bags topping 23 pounds on a day when 48 bags eclipsed 20 pounds and the average fish was just under 4 pounds. It moved the Jefferson, Tenn., pro from 96th to 45th in the tournament. He finished 43rd to move up to 87th in points, but he still has some work to requalify for the Elites.
Frank Talley of Temple, Texas, did himself a solid in hopes of requalifying for the Elites with a 5-8 that helped him weigh 21-11 and stay in the Top 10 after his opening 22-8. Talley started Championship Sunday in 10th, 3-3 out of the lead, and he finished there to jump 15 spots to 64th in AOY points.
Excelling on northern waters, Texas’ Clark Wendlandt topped 20 pounds each day, including his biggest of 22-2 on Day 2, to finish 16th. Wendlandt, who had a bit of a midseason slump to fall outside Classic contention, improved 14 spots to 26th as the 2020 Bassmaster Angler of the Year shoots for his seventh Classic.
Drew Cook brought in a 5-14 lunker in his Day 2 limit weighing 21-5. The Cairo, Ga., pro finished 32nd and remained fifth in the AOY standings, 44 points from the lead. Cook finished 11th at Champlain in 2021 and has finished in the 20s the past two times on the St. Lawrence River.
Starting 50th on Day 1, David Mullins of Mt. Carmel, Tenn., jumped to 16th with 23-13, the third biggest of Day 2. Mullins had 20-15 to move up a spot, but only his third cut of the year with some low finishes has him 77th in AOY.
Alex Redwine of Blue Ash, Ohio, where he learned the ways of the smallmouth, started ninth with 22-5 and bumped up to seventh with 22-4. A much slower Day 3 saw the second-year Elite drop to finish 29th, but that gained him 11 AOY spots to 79th in his efforts to requalify.
Rivet had one of the biggest bass on Day 2, a 5-10 that helped him climb from 57th to 32nd in the tournament. The Raceland, La., pro managed 17-5 on Day 3 to finish 40th, but that pushed him up a spot to third in AOY with 532 points, 41 back of Cobb.
Japanese rookie Kyoya Fujita, who was 15th after Day 1, utilized his electronics to bring in 22-15 and climb to sixth on Day 2. With 21-1, Fujita made his third Championship Sunday and was 2-12 from the lead. He caught 20-7 to finish seventh, climbing 10 spots in AOY to 15th. He is second in the Dakota Lithium Rookie of the Year race with 491 points, 25 behind Cifuentes.
Brandon Lester came in needing a good finish as he stood 54th in AOY after finishing second in 2022. He began the event tied for sixth and moved up to fourth with his best bag at St. Clair, 22-13. The pro from Fayetteville, Tenn., was just short of becoming the eighth Elite to top 20 pounds all four days, and he dropped to ninth. The finish gave him a 16-spot improvement in AOY to 38th as he targets his ninth Classic.
Just three events prior, Luke Palmer had won his first Elite at Santee Cooper Lakes. That propelled him to 13th in AOY, but a 98th at Lay Lake and 70th at Sabine knocked him out of the Classic cut to 49th. The Oklahoma pro started a solid 12th at St. Clair with 22-0 and moved up with one of Day 2’s best bags of 23-12.
Using his forward facing sonar, Cifuentes hunted for larger, more solitary bass. He found them on Day 2, weighing several in the 5-pound range to total 24-0 and move into second place.
Although low on his BassTrakk estimates, Takumi Ito busted the VMC Monster Bag of the event at 25-8 to take the lead with 47-4. Included in his five-fish limit was a 6-2, which earned the popular fourth-year pro $2,000 as Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the day and the event.
Also starting outside the Classic cut in 59th, Cory Johnston got behind the eight ball by starting 68th with a disappointing 17-15. He narrowly climbed inside the Top 50 cut with 21-0, then brought in 22-13 on Day 3 to finish 25th and salvage points. Johnston moved to 51st in points and has hope as the Series finishes on his home water of the St. Lawrence River, where he just posted a second in the St. Croix Open. There were 26 bags topping 20 pounds on Day 3, and the average fish again weighed just under 4 pounds.
It had been a long time since Jacob Foutz had been a factor, but the Charleston, Tenn., made noise as one of seven who topped 20 pounds every day. He was 21st after two days and caught Day 3’s best of 23-11, including the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of 5-10, to jump to seventh heading into the final day. With 20-5, Foutz totaled 86-4 to finish sixth and moved into 86th in points, giving him some hope to requalify.   
Schmitt, who fell to 12th on Day 2, had the second-best on Day 3 and gets an assist from son, Dylan, to show his 23-3. That moved Schmitt into fourth, just 1-5 out of the lead. He failed to top 20 pounds for the first time and dropped to fifth with 86-10, but the finish pushed him to ninth in points as the Elites next fish at Champlain, where he won the 2021 Elite and 2016 Open.
After 22-11 on Day 3, Palmer headed into Championship Sunday with a 12-ounce lead. However, 21-15 left him with 90-6, 1-3 shy of his second title of the year. He did jump 20 spots to 29th as he vies for a fifth Classic berth.
With 20-6 on Day 3 then 22-1 on Championship Sunday, Ito totaled 89-11 and missed winning his second Elite by 1-14. Suffering a subpar year, Ito moved up 15 spots to 66th in AOY and has an outside chance of making his fourth Classic.
Greg Hackney topped 20 pounds each day, climbing from 17th to 13th to ninth. He went into the final day 3-1 out of the lead as he sought his seventh Bassmaster title. Despite catching a 5-1 to tie for Phoenix Boats Big Bass of Day 4, Hackney finished ninth with 85-15 and solidified an 18th Classic berth by jumping to 14th in points.
It was rough out on St. Clair for Cifuentes on Day 3, when he weighed his smallest limit of 21-1. He began the final day 12 ounces behind Palmer, but the Cowboy took the lead in midmorning after hunting down three 5-pound class bass, including one that literally jumped into his boat and tying for Phoenix Boats Big Bass at 5-1.
With an estimated 23-10 at 11 a.m., the pro from Clinton, Ark., had a lead of nearly 5 pounds. Others gained ground but no one could overtake Cifuentes, who had the day’s best of 23-13 for a total of 91-8, which topped the previous best weight in a St. Clair Elite. Cifuenties is the first Elite with two victories in his rookie season, and he stands sixth in AOY and leads the ROY race.

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