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AdvBassStats: 2023 St. Lawrence River Open

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Team Canada started strong in the 2023 St. Croix Bassmaster Open at St. Lawrence River. Cory Johnston led the Day 1 field with 26-14, and Jamie Bruce starred on Day 2 with 24-8. We’ve become a little numb to the weights at St Lawrence, but we need to remember that this was an Opens field with more than 200 boats plus co-anglers, and it was limited to the river area – Lake Ontario was off limits. 
For some perspective on the St. Lawrence fishery, these are the Day 1 field average weights for every Open over the last two seasons. Opens put a ton of pressure on even the biggest bodies of water. Averages range from single digits up to the low 12s each season. St Lawrence delivered more than 3 pounds of extra weight in its 213 boat average.
After the first two days, Johnston held the overall lead and Bruce was third. Jody White wedged in between, scoring 25-11 on Day 1 and 22-10 on Day 2. 
 
White was coming off a victory in an ABA event on the St. Lawrence the previous week, where he managed the Opens off limits and practice rules to perfection. He avoided the Opens off limits areas during his ABA practice, then ran into the river for the tournament on Saturday, which was the first Opens practice day where the river was in play. He landed on 27 pounds of fish and won a trophy and a first place check on his Opens practice day!
Day 3 brought the drama. White paced the field with 23-10, flipping a 1-pound, 5-ounce starting deficit into a 1-pound, 14-ounce victory over perennial favorite Johnston. That made White a back-to-back St Lawrence winner on back-to-back Saturdays. 
The breakdown of finishes by EQ anglers and Division anglers shows an unusually great result by the Division anglers. Thirteen of the event’s final top 40 were Division (three-event) or jackpot (single-event) anglers. That’s the highest number of the season. The Top 10 was split evenly at 5/5, with part-time Opens anglers White and Johnston taking first and second. When Division anglers move to the front, the points skew lower for the EQ anglers.
With his Top 10 finish in the St. Lawrence event, JT Thompkins moves into first place in the EQ AOY standings. Kenta Kimura moved up to second. As an Elite angler already, he doesn’t count toward the nine Elite qualifying spots (dark blue). Jamie Bruce’s third-place at St. Lawrence would propel him into the top 10 and into Elite Series qualifying range at eighth in overall Bassmaster Opens EQ rankings.
I’ve continued to analyze points accumulation and average finishes for the EQ anglers to try and understand how each event impacts the standings and guess what might happen as the season completes. We still don’t really know how to predict EQ, but I’ve made some enhancements to the Live AdvBassStats EQ Dashboard  – there’s more info on points, more readability, some new fields with what the anglers need to do over the last three events to reach a number of different thresholds. More available at @AdvBassStats on Instagram or Facebook.

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