BAY CITY, Mich. – Lest you see “Saginaw Bay” on the schedule and assume Toyota Stage 7 Presented by Ranger Boats is going to be an offshore smallmouth showdown, know this: When you tune in to MLFNOW! on Thursday for Day 1 of the final event of the Bass Pro Tour season, you’re going to see a whole lot more than anglers miles offshore, heads pointed down at a screen, targeting smallmouth with spinning rods in hand. This isn’t going to be that kind of Great Lakes summertime derby.
Saginaw Bay is a big, diverse and intriguing playing field for Stage 7. With a huge population of largemouth – to go along with some smallmouth in the “serious quality” category – Saginaw is going to be a veritable amusement park for pros who like to do a little bit of everything. The forward-facing sonar game will very much be in play for one period each day for most anglers, but the two periods in which FFS will be off-limits are going to be where the rubber meets the road.
The Bass Pro Tour has visited Saginaw Bay just once before – Stage 7 in 2023 – but what we saw then and what we’ll see this week aren’t the same. That tournament was contested under the five-fish format (more on that later), and kicker smallmouth played a much larger role in Matt Becker’s eventual win than they maybe, possibly, potentially could this week. If we seem wishy-washy about what to expect, that’s because Saginaw Bay is truly the kind of fishery on which any number of patterns, techniques and strategies can result in a big day or a big tournament.
The playing field
In terms of bass fishing, Saginaw Bay sort of feels like a giant Florida fishery scooped from the Earth and plopped down smack-dab in the middle of a region known for the deep-water, offshore smallmouth bite. Grass, reeds, pads – vegetation of all kinds, really – with ample shallow(er) water… If you were transported through time and space and randomly placed somewhere on Saginaw Bay’s shoreline, you might mistake it for Okeechobee.
That said, it’s still connected to Lake Huron and still very much a Great Lakes fishery once you get away from shore. Occupying the space between Michigan’s “thumb” and the rest of the lower portion of the state, it’s a sprawling, substantial body of water that can be every bit as tumultuous as other parts of the Great Lakes when the wind gets going.
Artificially divided into two sections (the “inner bay” and “outer bay”), Saginaw Bay plays very differently depending on where you’re fishing. The outer bay, or the northern half heading out toward Lake Huron, is the deeper and more “Great Lakes” of the two sections. To the south heading toward the Saginaw River (which flows into the southernmost part of Saginaw Bay), the “inner bay” is much shallower and offers a lot more in the way of vegetation and fishable cover.
Here’s a closer look at the specifics of Saginaw Bay, by the numbers.
Saginaw Bay, by the numbers
6.44: Weight (in pounds) of the Michigan state-record white bass, caught on Saginaw Bay in 1989. The Bay is home to an abundance of game fish, including walleye, trout, salmon and perch.
13: Width of Saginaw Bay, in miles, at its narrowest point.
15: Mean depth (in feet) of the “inner bay,” the southern section of Saginaw Bay into which the Saginaw River flows.
26: Width of Saginaw Bay, in miles, at its widest point.
29.2: Overall average depth (in feet) of Saginaw Bay.
48: Mean depth (in feet) of the “outer bay,” the northern section of Saginaw Bay that exits to Lake Huron proper.
51: Length (in miles) of Saginaw Bay from the mouth of the Saginaw River to Au Sable Point and Pointe Aux Barques entering Lake Huron.
132.9: Maximum depth (in feet) of Saginaw Bay.
1,143: Saginaw Bay’s surface area, in square miles.
731,520: Saginaw Bay’s surface area, in acres.
The players
In 2023, the BPT experimented with a five-fish-limit format, and Stage 7 at Saginaw Bay and Saginaw River was the final event that season. That was the only other time FLW/MLF has visited Saginaw, so the information and data available needs to be dissected a bit.
For starters, Becker went on to win Stage 7 in 2023 (capping off the only AOY victory that hasn’t gone to Jacob Wheeler from 2021-2024) on the strength of mostly smallmouth – on average, heavier than their green counterparts on the Bay. However, the vast majority of bass caught during that event were largemouth, and largemouth numbers tend to massively outpace smallies in Saginaw Bay.
Now, with the every-scorable-bass-counts format back in place, it’s likely that green will trump brown in terms of volume and overall impact in this event. Jesse Wiggins is a prime example of that (more on that in the next section), having finished third in 2023 with a whole bunch of largemouth.
As for experience at Saginaw Bay, there really aren’t too many pros with extensive track records to speak of. Great Lakes experience will certainly factor in (as will, potentially, experience on Florida’s grassy lakes), but no one is a true local to the Bay. In addition, several of the pros who finished in the Top 10 in 2023 are no longer fishing the BPT, so it’s hard to say who really has the inside track in this one. Becker seems to be an obvious choice, as does Wiggins and the likes of Wheeler and shallow-water and vegetations specialists like Ott DeFoe and Brent Ehrler (20th in 2023).
Let’s break it down a little further, again, by the numbers…
5-5: Heaviest smallmouth weighed during Stage 7 in 2023, caught by Becker.
5-11: Heaviest largemouth (and biggest bass in general) weighed during Stage 7 in 2023, caught by Spencer Shuffield.
6: Number of 5-plus-pounders caught during Stage 7 in 2023.
17: Number of FLW/MLF events Dave Lefebre has fished on Great Lakes and Great Lakes-adjacent fisheries. While not a true predictor of Stage 7 success given the dynamics of Saginaw Bay, Lefebre should at least feel somewhat comfortable on the Great Lakes playing field.
22-11: Weight of Becker’s five-fish limit on the final day of competition at Stage 7 in 2023 – 5 pounds, 4 ounces heavier than anyone else caught that day.
81.56: Percentage of bass caught at Stage 7 in 2023 that were largemouth.
168: Distance (in miles) between Ron Nelson’s hometown of Berrien Springs, Michigan, and Bay City, Michigan (host city of Stage 7). Nelson is the pro who lives closest to Saginaw Bay, followed by Lefebre (Erie, Pennsylvania – 221 miles).
Are you serious? (Yes, actually)
Becker charged back on the final day of competition in 2023 to win Fishing Clash Angler of the Year and block Wheeler from a three-peat. Wheeler, taking it in stride (and likely with his competitive fires stoked like never before), came out in 2024 and locked down yet another AOY in dominant fashion, besting rookie phenom Drew Gill by 33 points.
This year, Wheeler has a chance to make it four in five years. And by “a chance,” we mean a good one. He leads another rookie, Jake Lawrence, by 27 points and Gill by 29. If Wheeler does what he does best – put himself in contention to win just about any event – he’ll run away with another AOY before first cast on the final day.
Anyone who’s followed professional bass fishing for any amount of time knows Wheeler, and probably has a pretty good idea of what his career trajectory looks like. But it’s easy to take his greatness for granted. For a little perspective, check this out (yes, by the numbers again):
0: Number of times Wheeler has finished lower than fourth in AOY standings since the inception of the BPT in 2019.
3: Number of Super Tournaments (during the COVID-altered 2020 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit season) in which Wheeler finished first or second. He won at Chickamauga and finished runner-up at both the Mississippi River and Lake Erie. Also 3: number of wins Wheeler notched on the BPT in 2021 to follow it up the next year.
4: Number of REDCREST finishes inside the top six (in six tries). Winning MLF’s biggest tournament is about the only thing Wheeler hasn’t accomplished at this point.
5.43: Average finish (by place) in Wheeler’s historic AOY season in 2022.
8: Place Wheeler finished at Saginaw Bay in 2023.
13: Number of career wins with FLW/MLF for Wheeler, including nine on the Bass Pro Tour.
21: Age at which Wheeler won the Forrest Wood Cup in 2012 – the youngest to ever win it.
61: Career Top 10s for Wheeler in FLW/MLF competition.
193,600: Least amount of money (in dollars) Wheeler has won in a complete BPT season (excludes shortened 2020 season and 2025). His high-water mark was $388,998 in 2021.
3.99 million: Wheeler’s career earnings in dollars.
So, the question remains: Will Wheeler win his fourth AOY in five years at Stage 7? Smart money is on yes, though you’re not likely to profit much taking a bet with those kinds of odds.
Also of note
• Wiggins finished third at Saginaw Bay in 2023 with 17-7 for the Championship Round and 34-7 total between the Knockout and Championship Rounds. Throughout the tournament, Wiggins caught a grand total of zero smallmouth. It was all largemouth, all day, for Wiggins, who primarily employed swim and flipping jigs to catch his fish. Is that the program that’s most likely to score a win at Stage 7 this year? Chances are, it’ll be at least part of it, but the question is this: How much will forward-facing sonar factor into the equation?
• FFS is never not a hotly debated topic, but the 2025 BPT has shown that there’s a way to strike a balance between old school and new school. With the 2025 BPT rules that only allow anglers one period of FFS use per day, the impact of forward-facing sonar has been seriously minimized this season. Still, it’s a powerful tool that comes into play often, especially on fisheries with a ton of diversity (like on the Tennessee River, for instance). Saginaw Bay is one of those fisheries. With a ton of shallow largemouth habitat and a lot of deeper, offshore water for hunting smallmouth, the winner of Stage 7 is likely going to be whomever can be most effective with their one FFS period per day – because plenty of people are going to catch plenty of largemouth up shallow all day, each day.
• Kevin VanDam finished out his unparalleled professional touring career at Saginaw Bay in 2023 with a runner-up finish to Becker. It was a great swan song for the G.O.A.T., nearly punctuating a lifetime of dominance with one more victory. This year, another Bass Fishing Hall of Famer will have a chance to go out on top when Skeet Reese makes his final casts on the Bass Pro Tour. Reese is retiring at the end of the season, but he’s doing so with a BPT win under his belt after having won at the James River last season. Reese, a true competitor and one of the faces of the sport for years and years, has an opportunity to embrace the competition one more time – and maybe pull a VanDam on his ride off into the sunset.
• Not to be lost in another historic Wheeler season, Lawrence deserves his flowers, too. We won’t soon forget the pair’s dramatics at Stage 4 that saw Lawrence overtake Wheeler with seconds remaining on the game clock for his first BPT win (watch the final minutes of that event right here). We also shouldn’t forget that Lawrence, on his home waters of Kentucky Lake, faced off with Wheeler again in Stage 5 just a month later to notch a second-place finish as Wheeler hoisted another trophy. And here we are, heading into the final event of the season, Wheeler leading Lawrence by 27 points in the AOY standings. Realistically, it’s a near certainty Wheeler finishes well enough that no one is going to catch him, but crazier things have happened (one could argue what happened at the conclusion of Stage 4 is one of them). Whatever happens in the AOY race, though, one thing is clear: Lawrence was ready for the big stage, and he’s not going anywhere.
• If you’re a fan of flipping and frogging and all things shallow vegetation, this is going to be an event you’re going to want to watch from start to finish. The electronics wizards and smallmouth fanatics will find ways of catching some offshore fish when FFS is in play, but viewers are going to be treated to a lot more largemouth catching on the Bay this week. An angler to really keep an eye on is DeFoe, who finished sixth in 2023 on the strength of a program that heavily featured a frog. The East Tennessee river rat is not the kind of angler you want to compete against in a summertime, shallow-water, vegetation-heavy event like this – especially considering he’s riding the momentum of a win at Stage 6 on the Potomac River. This year, with every scorable bass in play, DeFoe can let the frog fly for four days and see what happens.
Linking up!
For a LOT more info about Stage 7 and Saginaw Bay, check out these other stories we’ve published at MajorLeagueFishing.com and bookmark the tournament hub for all the coverage of this week’s action.