DETROIT, Mich. — Seth Feider caught all of his bass in Canadian waters when he won the three-day 2019 Elite Series Angler of the Year championship at Lake St. Clair with a total of 77 pounds, 15 ounces. Stetson Blaylock caught all his fish in U.S. waters when he finished second with 71-7. But Lake St. Clair will be a new playing field for both when the four-day YETI Bassmaster Elite begins here Thursday.
Canada waters are off-limits due to that country’s Covid-19 restrictions. And Blaylock is going to have considerably more company in U.S. waters from the 85-man field.
“That’s going to play a huge role,” Blaylock said. “You can’t get away from people. But I still think it will take 21, 22 pounds a day to win. I also think you’ll see a lot more 15 ½-, 16-, 17-pound bags, instead of so many 20-pound bags like you’ve seen in the past. It’s just harder to get bit. It’s nowhere near where it was last year. But I could be surprised.”
That was the consensus among the Elite Series surveyed Wednesday after 3 ½ days of practice on Lake St. Clair. It’s probably still going to take a four-day total in the mid to high 80-pound range to win, but that 100-pound mark isn’t likely to be approached.
“It’s probably more random than I’ve ever seen it,” said David Mullins, who finished 20th at the AOY Championship last year. “It’s probably the toughest bite I’ve ever seen here. It’s not like it was last year. It’s fishing small and the fish are educated.”
Brandon Palaniuk is coming off a win in the last Elite Series event at Lake Champlain. He was hoping the 100-pound mark would be topped here, but “that’s not happening,” he said. “I’ve been coming here for the last 10 years, and the last three or four years it has been as good as it has ever been, as far as numbers overall and numbers of big ones. It’s not fishing like that now.
“It’s always tough to get something dialed in here, and I’ve generally caught them in Canada in the past. So I spent most of practice marking new waypoints.”
Palaniuk had the lowest winning weight guess of the anglers surveyed – 82-11. That illustrates how good St. Clair has been, when it’s estimated to take over 20 pounds a day to win, and that’s considered “off” from how this lake has produced smallmouth bass in recent years. Jason Christie won the last four-day Elite Series event here with 88-8 on Aug. 24-27, 2017.
Tournament waters include a southern boundary of the Ambassador Bridge in the Detroit River and Lake Huron is open to the north, but venturing far into Huron isn’t feasible from the Metro Park takeoff and weigh-in site. (Takeoff is at 6:30 a.m. E.T. each day, and weigh-ins begin at 4:10 p.m.)
“I didn’t practice in Huron, and I probably should have,” said Mullins. “I think somebody might do well there, and in the (St. Clair) river.”
The nerve-wracking aspect of Lake St. Clair is its featureless bottom. The 430-square-mile lake (including Canada waters) averages 11 feet deep. Smallmouth bass tend to roam anyway, but they roam more at Lake St. Clair where there’s little structure to hold them.
“You’re looking at the same thing all day (on sonar graphs),” Mullins said. “You know you’re probably going to luck into them at some point, they’ll eventually get there. But it’s hard to wait on them.”
Feider has a track record of success on smallmouth waters, as evident by not only last year’s AOY title here, but his 2016 AOY title at Minnesota’s Lake Mille Lacs, when he totaled 76-5 over three days. He’s one of the pre-tournament favorites.
“I’d probably fish almost exclusively in Canada if I could,” he said, noting he wouldn’t be making one of the long runs north or south. “I’m going to sit out in the flotilla and try to grind out a check. I just haven’t found anything that a bunch of people don’t know about. I’m going to be surrounded by other boats.”
But still, Feider thinks it will take 87 or 88 pounds to win the tournament. That’s how good of a smallmouth bass fishery Lake St. Clair is, even without Canadian waters in play.