Jody White did what he believed was unthinkable after Day 2 of the St. Croix Bassmaster Open at St. Lawrence River; he overtook Cory Johnston to take home his first title as a pro in Opens competition.
The Vermont boater caught the biggest bag of Championship Saturday, an impressive 23 pounds, 10 ounces, and secured the victory with a three-day total of 71-15, edging out Johnston by 1-14.
On the final day, five bags broke the 20-pound mark and JT Thompkins landed a smallmouth that weighed 6-5, the biggest of the day. For the entire tournament, the pros landed well over 6,000 pounds of bass.
Here are some final observations from Waddington.
Johnston a runner-up… again
Johnston has been one of the best performers on the St. Lawrence River over the last several years. Unfortunately, one angler has been just a little bit better each of the last two trips he’s made here in Bassmaster competition.
“I just had a (bad) day and lost all the big ones,” Johnston said after weighing his 20-8 Day 3 bag. “I had all the fish in the palm of my hand. Two 5-pounders I touched with my hand and they came off. It is what it is.”
Although his 70-1 three total wasn’t enough to claim his second Opens victory on the fishery, it was a good warm-up for the remaining three events on the Elite Series schedule.
“We’ll get on to the next one,” he said. “The next three are smallmouth derbies so hopefully I can get a blue trophy in one of the next three.”
No real surprise in bait selection
Most anglers in the Top 10 were moving back and forth between deep and shallow smallmouth areas, while some were fortunate enough to find a consistent depth. One spot was essentially responsible for White’s victory.
Historic smallmouth catchers like drop shots with Berkley MaxScent Flat Worms, Ned rigs, jigs and hair jigs were popular bait choices for anglers this week on the St. Lawrence. Johnston threw a drop shot as well, but he was using a prototype 6th Sense bait.
Zach Goutremout and White tossed Carolina rigs to generate some of their better bites while Gary Miller mixed in a spybait. Then there was Jamie Bruce, who utilized an underspin to notch his Top 3 finish.
What did matter was weather, positioning and bite windows.
“There were a few bite windows. If you didn’t capitalize on those windows, you weren’t catching much,” Goutremout said.
Although winds were stiff across the region today, they were out of the north, which made navigation far easier than yesterday’s westerly winds. It did mess with White’s positioning, however.
“I was always fishing it with the current. If I was pulling up stream or pulling it across, they didn’t want that,” White remarked. “That got increasingly difficult as the tournament went on. If we had light winds, I could set up and fish very well. On Day 2, the wind was coming in an easy direction. I could still fish with the current, but my trolling motor wasn’t in the water half the time. It was rough. Today, with the wind coming from the north, I can’t tell you how many times I would end up with my bait 20 feet to the right of the boat by the end of the drift. You want everything to be in line the whole way. It was a challenge today.”
The West was where it was won
Nearly every angler in the Top 10 made the trek down towards the mouth of the St. Lawrence River to catch their smallmouth. White tracked his mileage and in total, he traveled 420 miles in his boat during the three-day event.
Points Update
The St. Lawrence River caused a little shake up in the Elite Qualifier points race. With his Top 10 finish, JT Thompkins moved into first-place with 1,089 points, just nine points ahead of Elite Series pro Kenta Kimura. John Garrett and Trey McKinney fell to third and fourth respectively with 1,067 and 1,034 points followed by Robert Gee in fifth with 1,018.
With the two toughest events on the schedule coming up in September, Watts Bar and Lake of the Ozarks, points accumulated in smallmouth country will go a long way.
More on this will be coming later.
Setting the stage for the final Elite
Even with the smallmouth just starting to group up on the St. Lawrence River this week after a stressful spawn, weights were pretty impressive throughout the Open field. By the time the last week of August rolls around and the 103 boat Elite Series field arrives, the smallies should be schooled up and feeding heavy, making for an exciting season finale.
