Huge weights await Bass Pro Tour pros in season finale on St. Lawrence River
MASSENA, N.Y. – The famed St. Lawrence River will play host to Minn Kota Stage Seven Presented by Humminbird for the final event of the 2024 Bass Pro Tour season. In addition to the usual tournament intrigue, there are plenty of storylines to watch, including the race for the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year title, the settling of the REDCREST 2025 field and the battle for qualifying for the 65-angler field 2025 BPT season.
Everything will be decided Aug. 6-11, as 78 anglers will compete on the St. Lawrence for the second time in tour history. Jacob Wheeler, who tallied an impressive 35 bass weighing 129 pounds on the final day, won that event in 2021. Another winner on the river fishing this tournament is Spencer Shuffield, who won the 2022 Tackle Warehouse TITLE championship with a five-bass limit weighing 22-12 on the final day – an event that was also set in August.
Shuffield counts the river among his favorite fisheries and spent time there before it went off limits in June. His report? It’s as good as ever.
“I went up there before the James River, and it was pretty good,” he said. “There were a lot of big ones to be caught, some on beds and some out deep already. It just seemed really healthy.”
The previous BPT stop was held in late June, 2021, before Shuffield joined the tour, and he expects a different outcome this time.
“I know when they were there before, the fish were on beds, and that doesn’t show the true colors of a place,” he said. “There’s going to be several guys catching over 100 pounds in a day in this one. If you think about it, that’s only 25 scorable smallmouth averaging 4 pounds there, and that’s not hard to do at all.”
About the fishery
The St. Lawrence River is massive, stretching nearly 750 miles, originating in the Atlantic Ocean and eventually flowing into Lake Ontario. Along the way, it serves as the border between Ontario and Quebec, Canada, before becoming the division between Ontario, Canada, and New York on the U.S. side. Nearly all of it is excellent fishing for many species and world-renowned smallmouth bass fishing.
The playing field for this event is the waters around Massena, New York, upstream to the Moses-Saunders Power Dam and downstream to the mouth of Lake Ontario at Tibbetts Point in Cape Vincent, New York. That’s a distance of more than 90 miles of fishable water, but the waters are effectively doubled as anglers can fish in American and Canadian waters this time, where pandemic restrictions kept them on the American side in 2021.
Throughout the tournament boundaries, anglers can expect to catch big smallmouth in the current, near boulders and vegetation, and around the many islands. The river is also known as the Thousand Islands, and there are actually 1,864 of them. The entire system has potential, but the areas closest to Lake Ontario will likely lure most anglers as they historically hold better-quality bass. Shuffield said he plans to fish there, though there’s potential and intrigue elsewhere.
“The ‘X-factor’ to me is the stretch of river from Massena to Ogdensburg; it’s an area I haven’t spent much time in,” he admitted. “I’m going to fish toward Lake Ontario because I know it so well, but I can see it being won anywhere on the river because of the every-fish-counts format. In a five-fish format, there’s no way to compete with the Clayton area toward the lake.”
The fishing this week will surely be good. Just how good it can be is the only question. If things line up, Michael Neal‘s Championship Round record of 168-11 from the final day of the 2021 season on Lake St. Clair could be in jeopardy. Shuffield thinks it’s possible, and the St. Lawrence River is the type of fishery to do it.
“It can happen,” he said. “The thing about the St. Lawrence is it’s not your typical smallmouth fishery. If you find one of those areas that’s got a big wad of them on it, the way the current has them set up on a place, you could sit there and catch 15 to 25 really, really quickly. You could see a guy get way ahead fast doing that.”
Tactics and the largemouth bite
Typical smallmouth offerings in deeper water are likely to be the theme of this event, with many spinning rods on competitors’ decks. Some may buck the trend, pull out heavier gear, and opt for a shallow-water power approach. Both hold potential and each will surely land some hard-fighting smallmouth, with largemouth also a possibility.
“I think someone can compete shallow, covering water with a ChatterBait or something like that and fishing the grass edges,” Shuffield said. “You can do well doing that, but I don’t think you can win. Drop-shots, Ned rigs and a Damiki rig out deep will be the way to win.”
Largemouth are a non-factor in most tournaments on the St. Lawrence, as they typically can’t compete in a five-fish format on this prolific smallmouth fishery. Even though the river’s largemouth weigh less on average, they’re still abundant and relatively ignored by anglers fishing the river. That could change this week, and Shuffield says that although winning with them is unlikely, largemouth may surprise some. There will surely be a small contingent of anglers who try their luck with the green ones.
“There will be somebody who does pretty good with largemouth,” he said. “But the problem with what I saw with the largemouth was the average largemouth was 2, 2 1/2 pounds, and, heck, the average smallmouth is going to be close to 4 pounds or even bigger. I’m not going to say there’s no way they win, because I know that there could be a little hidden gem somebody comes across. It’s not something I’ll look for, though. I’m all in on smallmouth.”
Generally, making a long run approaching 90 miles by water creates some risk from possible bad weather and less fishing time, but this event will feature the Bass Pro Tour’s trailering policy, which means that competitors can drive to and take off from any public launch ramp. Anglers who launch closer to the lake will still lose some fishing time while driving, but it could play into their strategy. Add in the every-scorable bass format, and anglers will need to put it all on the table and plan their approaches. It’s something Shuffield was already weighing ahead of official practice.
“I’ve never had more than three and a half hours to fish down there because I had to run down from Massena and be back for check-in,” he said. “Now, having six hours to fish will make a difference. It will be interesting to see how those areas hold up and if they have enough fish you’ll need in August in an every-fish format.”