Wide range of baits, approaches did the trick on the St. Lawrence River

MASSENA, N.Y. — The St. Lawrence River produced as expected at Minn Kota Stage Seven Presented by Humminbird, the final event of the 2024 Bass Pro Tour season, with many big smallmouth (and plenty of largemouth) hitting SCORETRACKER®. There were also plenty of ways to catch fish as proven by the Top 10, which were pretty evenly split between shallow and deep-water approaches.

Here’s a full breakdown of the baits and techniques used by 10 pros who made it to the Championship Round.

1. Michael Neal – 88-14 (28)     

Michael Neal cemented himself as a smallmouth expert with his second big win on a smallmouth mecca, having also won the final event of the 2021 season on Michigan’s Lake St. Clair. This week, he primarily used a drop-shot rig in deep water and mixed in a finesse football jig to claim his second Bass Pro Tour victory.

“I caught almost all of them on a drop-shot but threw a finesse football jig a little to show them something different,” he said. “I stayed in the 40- to 60-feet range most of the time, but I don’t think the depth mattered a lot. In most places where I caught fish, there was rock on the bottom that the fish would use as a current break. Some would be up-current, and others would be down-current on sharper drops.”

Neal stayed on several key stretches in the Alexandria Bay area, hitting upwards of 25 spots during the week. He said the presence of gobies was vital, and modified his baits to match them better.

“The fish were spitting up gobies all week,” he said. “To mimic them, I used a green pumpkin Big Bite Baits Quarantine Craw and threaded some skirt material into them. I went to Walmart, bought a sewing needle and cut a banded skirt to get the silicone strands. I put eight of them into the bait, so it had 16 little legs coming out of it, which I think made a difference since I was fishing around guys and seemed to get more bites.”

He threaded the bait on a 1/0 Gamakatsu G-Finesse Stinger drop-shot hook and used a 1/2-ounce Denali Kovert tungsten weight. He fished it on a 7-foot, 6-inch medium Denali Kovert rod with a 3000-sized spinning reel spooled with 10-pound Sunline Overwatch braid with a leader of 7-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon.

He also caught fish on a 1/2-ounce green pumpkin Beast Coast O.W. Sniper Jig fished on casting gear.

“I used the same rod blank, but I had a guy back home turn it into a baitcast rod with a different handle and change the first few guides,” Neal said. “It’s got the right length and a backbone to drive the hook, but still enough tip to play fish. I’ve always been comfortable landing smallmouth on that rod.”

2. John Hunter – 73-12 (23)    

Kentucky’s John Hunter scored his best-ever finish on the Bass Pro Tour and made a serious run for the win, holding the lead for a good chunk of the final day. He kept it simple all week with a drop-shot, plus a small handful coming on a Carolina rig.

The drop-shot with a green pumpkin Googan Baits Rattlin’ Ned was easily his best bait. He fished it with a 1/2-ounce drop-shot weight and size 1 drop-shot hook, using 8-pound P-Line Tactical Fluorocarbon and focused on the stretch of river between McNair Island and Alexandria Bay.

“I was running probably 10 to 15 places, and the bites were coming from 25 to 50 feet deep,” Hunter said. “In practice, I found a 3-mile zone with the most activity. I was looking for as many little sweet spots as possible in that zone.”

3. Nick Hatfield – 55-14 (15)

Rookie Nick Hatfield had a solid albeit up-and-down first season on the BPT but ended the campaign with his best finish. He stayed shallow and caught fish with a drop-shot, jighead minnow and a tube in the Alexandria Bay area.

“I had a couple of different baits that were big for me this week,” he said. “I caught a bunch the first day on a 3/8-ounce Scottsboro Tackle Hellfire Finesse Swimbait Head with a gray glimmer pearl belly Strike King Baby Z-Too for fish that were on bait. They were eating small baitfish the locals call ‘silversides.’ It was good the first day, but I could never get a bite doing it after that.”

It was all about the drop-shot and tube the rest of the way for Hatfield.

“I was fishing shallow and deep, but primarily shallow, and I used a 1/8-ounce drop-shot weight and a Megabass Hazedong Shad or Geecrack Imo Kemushi Slim Worm,” he said. “I fished them on a #2 Hayabusa drop-shot hook or FPP straight shank when I threaded the bait. I also caught several good fish, including the 6-pounder on the last day, on a tube. I stuck with green pumpkin for all the baits.”

Hatfield was looking for critical areas and would rotate through them each day.

“The best areas were sand spots and little clean areas in the grass, but they had to be close to deep water,” he said. “I was catching most in about 5 feet of water, and they would be a cast distance away from deep water. If you could find that, they would be on it. It couldn’t be a massive flat; it was specific areas, and they would move back and forth throughout the day, so I had to keep checking them.”

Even in these shallow-water zones, Hatfield utilized his Garmin LiveScope to give him a better chance.

“I saw a lot of them with my eyes just cruising and caught a few of those, but I spooked them a lot of the time,” he said. “If you could see them on ‘Scope 120 feet out, you could get within 80 or 100 feet, and if you could make a good cast to them, they’d bite almost every time.”

4. Drew Gill – 55-6 (18) 

Rookie Drew Gill capped off an impressive first year on the Bass Pro Tour with another excellent event, which gave him a runner-up finish in the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race to Jacob Wheeler. Gill stuck to his forward-facing sonar strengths and caught his St. Lawrence River bass on a jerkbait, with a drop-shot also contributing.

“I threw the jerkbait most of the week — a medium diver in pro blue — on a 7-foot, medium Ark Invoker Tour Series rod,” he said. “I upsized the hooks on it and went with a lighter line than usual, 8-pound Seaguar Tatsu, to get it down faster. Most of the jerkbait fish were between 6 and 14 feet, and most were in bays or on larger flats. I ran around and fished different spots to keep areas fresh and not beat on them too bad.”

Gill went with a smelt-colored Big Bite Baits Scentsation Slim Minnow, a 1/2-ounce drop-shot weight and a size 1 hook when fishing a drop-shot.

“I was fishing 42 to 50 feet deep on the tops of shoals and isolated rock veins,” he said.

5. Matt Becker – 53-12 (17)     

Matt Becker, the 2023 Fishing Clash Angler of the Year, is one of the premier smallmouth anglers on the Bass Pro Tour, with much of his success credited to light line and spinning tackle. This time, he threw a curveball to the smallmouth and stuck with baitcast gear and a heavier line.

“I didn’t catch a single fish on a spinning rod until the last few minutes of the last day,” Becker said. “I stayed shallow the whole time, fishing 15 feet or less and fishing the tops of shoals and on flats. I threw several different jerkbaits, and the whole key was covering as many areas as I could.”

Throughout the week, Becker threw a Bill Lewis Scope Stik, Megabass Vision ONETEN and O.S.P. Varuna while mixing in a new twitch bait called the Bill Lewis Depth Strike. He also rotated colors, utilizing pro blue, Tennessee shad and green gizzard shad hues.

While he covered a lot of water — everywhere from the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge to the narrows — Becker had certain things he was looking for.

“The main constant was a clean bottom. I didn’t want grass growing on it or bottoms with moss or slime on them,” he said. “I was looking for rock and sand that had a nice clean, bluish look to it.”

6. Chris Lane – 52-1 (18)       

Fishing farther downriver than many of his competitors, Chris Lane stuck to shallow water with a power-fishing approach. One of the keys to his success was making plenty of moves in a day and covering water with a vibrating jig.

“I was targeting rock anywhere from a foot of water down to about 12 feet deep,” he said. “Some areas with rock mixed with grass were also very good. I was fishing heavy current, hitting a lot of spots, and my Power-Pole MOVE trolling motor was spot on for maneuvering my boat, especially after the current picked up with all that rain.”

Lane fished a 1/2-ounce green pumpkin Bass Pro Shops XPS Chatterbomb Bladed Jig by Z-Man with a black trailer. He fished it on a 7-3, medium-heavy Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris rod, 8.3:1 Johnny Morris Platinum Signature Baitcast Reel, and 20-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon line.

Interestingly, Lane compared the St. Lawrence River to his home waters of Lake Guntersville in Alabama, where he says shallow water is always an option.

“Every time I come here, I stay shallow. I’m not one of those guys that gets out in 30 or 40 feet of water,” he said. “It’s a lot like Guntersville, where most stay out deep, but you can always catch them shallow there if the conditions are right. You can also do well here and there by staying shallow the whole time.”

7. Brent Ehrler – 42-6 (13)   

California’s Brent Ehrler secured another Top 10 finish and stuck with a drop-shot rig. He focused on the main river in 20 to 40 feet of water and moved frequently.

“I was fishing shoals, reefs, humps, that type of stuff,” Ehrler said. “I had one place I started on every morning and then hit many spots. The more spots you hit, the more fish you could catch. I could double back on some spots and catch another one or two, but it was mainly hopping from one to another.”

Ehrler fished his drop-shot rig on a Daiwa Tatula Elite Brent Ehrler Dropshot Rod — a 7-1 medium model — and used a 4000-sized Daiwa Tatula MQ reel spooled with 12-pound Sunline Overwatch braid and 8-pound Sunline Sniper fluorocarbon for his leader.

His baits included a Tennessee shad colored Yamamoto Scope Shad or a green pumpkin and watermelon Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm rigged on a size 2 or 4 Gamakatsu G-Finesse Stinger drop-shot hook with a 3/8-ounce ARK Tungsten drop-shot weight.

8. Spencer Shuffield – 40-8 (13)       

Spencer Shuffield, the 2022 Tackle Warehouse TITLE winner on these waters, was a pre-tournament favorite and made it to the final day. He utilized a two-pronged approach that changed as the event went on, starting with a jerkbait early before swapping it for a finesse jig.

“The first two days, I was catching them over shallow humps with a prototype Yo-Zuri jerkbait in matte shad that will be out in the spring,” he said. “It’s a mid-depth diver that will get down to 8 or 12 feet deep; I was getting it down 9 or 10 feet on 12-pound line. I switched to a 3/8-ounce green pumpkin Beast Coast O.W. Sniper jig with a little Ned rig bait as a trailer at the end of the second day and caught six good ones in the last 45 minutes. That’s all I did for the rest of the tournament.”

Fishing a large zone around Alexandria Bay, Shuffield moved constantly and hit many new areas.

“I bounced around a lot of stuff, running a pattern of shallow humps and most of the places I had never fished in my life,” he said. “The last day, I tried some of those deeper bars in 25 to 35 feet of water where I won the TITLE, and I couldn’t get a bite. There wasn’t as much current, and the fish got goofy, and I wasted too much time over there.”

9. Bryan Thrift – 38-4 (13)    

Bryan Thrift had a great start to the event, winning his group, then advancing to the Knockout Round and, eventually, the final day on the strength of his jig bite. He fished a large stretch of about 16 miles yet still believes he ran out of bass on the final day.

“I found some of those places in practice, and they were the only spots where the fish were spitting up crawfish,” he said. “I think that’s a lot of why they were there. Maybe I caught them all, or the pressure got to them, but they were gone the last day.”

Fishing between 25 and 30 feet deep, Thrift plied the rocky cover with a 1/2- and 3/4-ounce green pumpkin yellow Fitzgerald Fishing Bryan Thrift Tungsten Micro Jig with a green pumpkin 3-inch Damiki Stinger as the trailer. He fished the jig on his signature series 7-3 medium Fitzgerald Fishing Micro Jig rod, a 7.2:1 Fitzgerald Fishing VLD10 reel and 12-pound P-Line 100% fluorocarbon line.

10. Marty Robinson – 34-12 (12)       

Marty Robinson was another angler who stuck to the shallows. He caught both smallmouth and largemouth, often mixed in the same areas. He used a trio of baits and focused on the mid-section of the tournament boundaries.

“I stayed shallow, and the most fish came on a drop-shot with a couple of different baits — a little 3-inch swimbait and a Zoom Z-Drop,” he said. “I also caught a few on a Strike King Bitsy Tube and a few on a Buckeye Lures Spot Remover head with a Zoom Trick Worm. All of the colors were green pumpkin or goby colors.”

Aside from just shallow water, vegetation was a key for Robinson.

“Most of the fish were around scattered cabbage in 5 to 7 feet of water, and the smallmouth and largemouth were both in those same places,” he said.