NORTH EAST, Md. – At nearly 80 years old, Virginia resident Woo Daves, the 2000 Bassmaster Classic champion, has likely seen more tides come in and more tides go out than any two or three other competitors in this week’s 2025 St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Upper Chesapeake Bay presented by SEVIIN. He’s seen flood tides into parking lots, and low, low tides that drained entire creeks. Yet even he was befuddled by today’s tide, which refused to go out properly or fully as the result of an opposing south wind.
“It held the water in,” he said. “And it made a lot of good areas muddy.” He landed a mere two fish for 5 pounds 9 ounces and is currently packing up his truck to head to the next in a string of over 300 career events with B.A.S.S. Like the tide, you can only keep him up or down for so long before his natural muscle memory takes over.
He wasn’t the only tidal water expert who saw the wind blow away a good bite. Indeed, among the top ten anglers in the standings after Day Two, only two of them caught more today than they did yesterday. Yesterday’s top three anglers — Dillon Falardeau, Steve Dimatteo and Josh Bragg – saw their daily weights drop by approximately 3, 10, and 8 pounds, respectively. For Falardeau, it was enough not just to maintain his lead but to extend it from 2 ounces to nearly 2 pounds.
Even the expected cut weights were low. Yesterday, 10th place was 19-12, which projects to a doubled weight of 39-8. Instead, it took just 34-4 to make it to Championship Friday, a drop-off of 5 pounds. At the money line (45th place), the cut weight on Day One was 15-8, which projects to 31 pounds even. Instead, it took 28-15 to get paid.
Those anglers who maintained their position, or improved it, were the ones who could survive the wind or even benefit from it.
Past Bassmaster Classic qualifier Pete Gluszek, who guides on these waters, caught 14 pounds yesterday and 16-4 today. That moved him from 64th to 33rd. He complained about the east wind on Wednesday, but he was the rare contestant who said today’s wind was an improvement.
“The fish bit like crazy,” he said. “I caught 30 or 40 fish, fishing in a crowd. The wind let me stay in the grass today. Yesterday I had to flip and pitch to docks I hadn’t fished for 20 years, but today I used the wind to my advantage. I had to change my bait selection – I was swimming a worm – but once I figured that out they couldn’t stay off it.”
Part of the problem with the wind is that it muddied certain areas, leaving only small stretches clean and fishable. Gluszek said he was amazed to see groups of young anglers working together, moving in unison and sharing information to best adapt.
“They were sitting in the clearer holes waiting for fish to come to them,” he said of the group, many of whom likely had little direct tidal water experience. “It was like they’d had a 20 year tutorial on it.”
Some anglers who survived to fish another day said that the key was finding areas – or spots within particular areas – that weren’t affected one way or the other by tidal fluctuations, or lack thereof. Duke Nave, a previous Top 10 finisher here, added 17-8 to his Day One catch of 18-5, and rose from 14th to 6th. Despite being fairly local, he caught his fish in places he’s never fished before, holes in the eel grass.
“The fish definitely get sucked into those depressions on low tides,” he said. “But they’re there even on higher tides. I think that’s why a lot of guys from other areas are doing well. They don’t know about high tide spots or low tide spots, they just go fishing through the lulls.”
Of course, while the tide may bring bass into an area, or lead them to bite, it also brings unwanted visitors.
“That wind blew in and so did the catfish,” reported Elite Series pro and past Opens winner Chad Pipkens. “I caught about 47 catfish for 300 pounds.”
One way to beat that is to find areas where the tide doesn’t matter. Arkansas pro Stephen Browning, a past Elite Series competitor who has twice won Opens on the Red River, tried to minimize the impact of the moon’s gravity.
“I went up the river, doing what Stephen Browning does,” he said, referring to the Susquehanna, which has current generated by the Conowingo dam that impacts, but does not eliminate the tidal flow. It didn’t hurt that he had most of his best areas up there to himself, and while the bite got better when the tide went out, it was solid all day. He recovered from a 10 pound, 11 ounce Day 1 that had him in 106th with 17 pounds today, moving him up 49 spots. That’ll provide valuable points in his quest to rejoin the Elites, where his son Beau is currently a rookie.
Tomorrow the ten survivors should have moderate winds out of the southwest. They should also have much more water to themselves, although it would surprise exactly no one if two or more of them end up on top of each other. With the expected tides an hour later, it may become a battle of who makes the slight adjustment to harness the wind instead of fighting its unchangeable impacts.
