The final stop of the 2024 Bassmaster Elite Series took place this past weekend at the St. Lawrence River, out of Waddington, New York. It was the second of back-to-back tournament out in New York on one of the best smallmouth bass fisheries in the world.
Heading out to these final two events, I had one goal in mind. To qualify for the 2025 Bassmaster Classic, our annual championship event that I was fortunate to win in 2023. It’s our big event and one that I would be heartbroken to miss.
Heading out to New York, I was in 46th place in the points standings. The top 40 earn a spot in the Classic so I had some moving up to do. Back in April, I finished almost dead last in a tournament in Florida, where I received zero points towards the Classic qualification and it’s felt like I’ve been digging out of a big hole ever since.
After last week’s disappointment at Lake Champlain, where I had a great first day then a tough second day that kept me from moving up in the standings, there was a lot of pressure going into this final event.
We have visited the St. Lawrence River for tournaments the past six years on the Elite Series so it’s a body of water that I’m familiar with. Sometimes we go out of Waddington, which is way up the river, over 100 kilometers from the Lake Ontario. Sometimes we go out of Clayton, which is about 25 kilometers from the lake.
While the river has great fishing, it’s been proven the past several visits that you need to fish in the big lake if you want to win. There just seems to be more big smallmouths out there. Part of it is because Lake Ontario is so big, the biggest water I have ever been on. If the wind blows, it doesn’t take much for massive waves to form, making it tough to move around and fish. It’s mother nature’s way of protecting the fish from anglers – you simply can’t fish out there every day. But when you can, five- and six-pound smallmouths are common.
The fishing in the river is still good and if I had been in a position where I only needed a decent finish to get the job done, I would have stayed close to Waddington but I decided I needed to gamble and run out on Lake Ontario to try and have a good finish. Heading in, I felt like I needed to have a top 25 finish to have a good shot at doing what I needed to do.
After a couple of days of practice, I found a few offshore rockpiles that had big smallmouths on them and I decided I would make the big boat ride at least the first couple of days when the winds were forecasted to be light. It ended up being a 160-kilometer trip each way, where I had to get gas twice. By far the longest ride I’ve ever taken in a boat. It would take me about two hours and twenty minutes to get to my spot in the mornings and then a bit longer to return in the afternoon when the waves were a bit bigger from the wind and boat wakes. The St. Lawrence is a busy place!
Things worked out the first couple of days and I brought in some solid limits, averaging around 23 pounds each day, which had me in 14th place and inside the Classic cutline. The weather changed on day three with strong south winds forecasted, making my run out to the lake almost impossible. If I had gone, I would not have enough time to fish. As it was, I only had about three hours when it was calm, never mind having to fight with the six and seven foot waves that were rolling into the mouth of the river.
Each day on my way back, I sampled places in the river where I had caught fish in the past, planning to stay in the river the third day. I stuck to my plan and managed to catch 20 pounds on day three, eventually landing me in 15th place to finish the tournament. It was disappointing to not make the top 10, but my main goal for this event was to make the Classic, which we did accomplish, ending up 39th in the points list.
It was a stressful week with those long boat rides, but after the tournament, it felt really good that we ended the season on a good note and accomplished what I set out to do. We just squeaked in, but we did it.
A big congratulations to my fellow Canadian anglers, Chris and Cory Johnston, who were the big winners on the weekend. They are very dominant on this body of water and Cory ended up winning the tournament, while Chris won the Bassmaster Angler of the Year for collecting the most points throughout the season. He is the first Canadian angler to win the prestigious award. They each won $100,000 for their respective work.
After a lot of time on the road over the past seven months, I’m excited to get home for the rest of the open water season to enjoy all of the great fishing we have around Sunset Country.
