Matt Lee Lets It Rip on Bass Pro Tour Day 1 on Lake Champlain
55-pound single-day margin of victory is biggest in MLF history
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – There were plenty of questions to answer heading into Day 1 of Toyota Stage Six Presented by Googan Baits on Lake Champlain. For example, who’s going to leave New York as the leader in the Angler of the Year race? Will the Bass Pro Tour see a first-time Stage winner? Or will it be smallmouth or largemouth that carry the week?
After three periods of competition and an astoundingly dominant day on Lake Champlain, Alabama pro Matt Lee might have given us the answer to at least one of those questions (and maybe all of them he can keep up his stellar performance).
GALLERY: MATT LEE LAPS GROUP A FIELD
Lee lapped the Group A field on Thursday, racking up 40 largemouth for 103 pounds, 5 ounces, ending the day with a 55-6 lead over John Cox in second place (47-15). The Alabama pro spent the day exploiting largemouth in shallow grass in a particularly productive stretch of the Inland Sea, working a 4-inch Senko on a 1/4-ounce weight to register the largest single-day margin of victory in Bass Pro Tour history.
“It’s a long derby ahead, but today was sick,” Lee said. “I have bass hand – it’s not even bass thumb, it’s my whole hand. I landed on the absolute nectar (today). Of all the water on Champlain and 34 of us (anglers) running all over the place, this spot was the nectar.”
Lee Loaded up on Largemouth
Lee didn’t start the day like a house afire, though. He left Plattsburgh City Marina in the morning with smallmouth rods on his deck and didn’t connect with his first scorable fish until nearly two hours had passed in Period 1. After a few unsuccessful moves and some frustration with smallmouth that wouldn’t bite, Lee eventually landed in an area riddled with 2-plus-pound largemouth.
He caught his first scorable fish of the day on a Lucky Craft Gunfish and continued to dabble between a topwater and stick worm, but eventually settled into a steady rhythm with the Senko. Lee landed fish in bunches throughout the second and third periods, piling up 80-plus pounds in five hours of competition.
“I saw smallmouth but couldn’t get them to bite, ran to a largemouth place that I had fished before, caught a 3-10 largemouth and then sat there in a 150-yard stretch of grass and flipped up 100 pounds of bass,” Lee marveled. “I slowed down with a 7-foot-6 Quantum Vapor with a high-speed reel, 17-pound INVIZX, a 1/4-pound weight and a 4-inch Senko, flipping hydrilla in 12 to 15 feet. What a fun day, man.”
The Mossy Oak pro will take Friday off, and start Group A’s second qualifying day on Saturday with a massive head start for the group’s automatic first-place berth in the Championship Round.
Numbers and Notes from Day 1
- Lee caught the most scorable bass of the day with 40
- Ott DeFoe caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day ($1,000), a 5-4 largemouth
- The biggest smallmouth of the day was a 5-2 by Scott Suggs
- 308 scorable bass landed on SCORETRACKER® on Thursday, including 156 smallmouth and 152 largemouth
What’s Next
The Toyota Stage Six Presented by Googan Baits continues Friday with Group B’s first qualifying day. Headlining Group B is Brent Ehrler, who enters Stage Six only 10 points behind Ott DeFoe in the Angler of the Year race. Two-time 2021 winner Jacob Wheeler will also begin his quest for his third Bass Pro Tour trophy this year and his fifth overall.
Weather for Friday’s competition day calls for an 86-degree high with scattered clouds and south/southeast breezes under 10 miles per hour.
A scorable bass for Stage Six must weigh at least 2 pounds. Group A anglers will carry their weight from Thursday into Sunday’s second qualifying day. The anglers who finish second through 17th in combined two-day weight will advance to the Knockout Round.
You can catch all three periods of competition Friday on the MLF NOW! live stream, starting at 8:45 a.m. ET. Competition begins with lines in at 9 a.m. ET.