Bassmaster Elite St. Clair Recap
The seventh stop of the 2023 Bassmaster Elite Series took place on famed Lake St. Clair in Detroit, Michigan. With Lake St. Clair being relatively "featureless," pros knew that forward-facing sonar would be a major player on this body of water. Many of the anglers knew that they would be heavily relying on their electronics to find nomadic smallmouth bass keying in on baitfish schools which generally consisted of perch on St. Clair.
With that in mind, we noticed one particular technique that outshined every other technique during this tournament--a drop shot. Looking at the top finishers, there were some other techniques that played a role, but all still employed a drop shot of some sort in their strategy. On this particular body of water, the anglers utilized anywhere from a 1/4-ounce to 1/2-ounce tungsten weight to get their baits down to the fish quickly. As we watched the live coverage of the event, we noticed these particular baits catching more fish than others.
Berkley Flat Worm - PowerBait MaxScent
It's no surprise seeing the Flat Worm still catching smallmouth bass in the Great Lakes. Since its release, this has been one of the most fish-catching baits to throw on a drop shot all around the country for brown bass. The Flat Worm carried Joey Cifuentes to his second Elite Series victory this season.
"Fluke" or "Baitfish" Style Baits
Seeing as the primary forage of these St. Clair smallmouth is perch, it makes sense to see lots of anglers utilizing soft plastic lures that have baitfish profiles. The Strike King Z-Too and Baby Z-Too were thrown by many of the pros, especially for their buoyancy and durability. The Xzone Lures Hot Shot Minnow was another similarly profiled bait that helped Canadian Pro Cooper Gallant to a 4th place finish. As for color selection, matching the forage was important, but not necessarily a must, due to smallmouth being very aggressive sight feeders. That allowed anglers to use colors such as pearls and whites to get more bites.
Other Players
Although drop shots dominated the field, there were still some other baits that helped propel the top finishers to Championship Sunday. Many notable big fish were caught using Neko rigs and spy baits. Everyone knows that a Neko rig still catches them everywhere, although the spy bait craze has seemed to slow down a bit; great to see it still performing at the highest level of competition. Bryan Schmitt and Taku Ito both leaned on these techniques for their top-5 finishes.
