The Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine Michigan Division has enjoyed a full season of slugfests on the Detroit River. Next up: the Detroit River – and likely another all-out smallmouth smashfest.
August 24, the Michigan Division returns to the Detroit River for one last tune-up before the Super Tournament at the same venue September 21-22. That may sound like a whole lot of action on the same fishery, but the playing field isn’t actually just the Detroit River. With Lakes Erie and St. Clair in the picture, it’s anyone’s guess where the next tournament will be won.
Tournament Details
Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine Michigan Division
Trenton, Mich.
Aug. 24
About the fishery
Taking off from Trenton, Michigan, anglers have all the options in the world. There’s left out of takeoff into Lake St. Clair and even into the St. Clair River. There’s right into Lake Erie, which possesses about all the water an angler could want or need to get lost chasing smallmouth for a few weeks. Depending on weather conditions, these are both solid options, though the Detroit River proper also comes into play more fully this time of year.
Scott Dobson, MLF pro and renowned northern smallmouth extraordinaire, fished the most recent Michigan Division BFL on the Detroit River and expects this go-around to be similar – though not altogether the same.
“That tournament was won on St. Clair, but there was a lot of good Top-10 finishes that came out of the Detroit River itself,” he said. “The Detroit River is starting to heat up, and Lake Erie is really going to start to shine late August into September.”
St. Clair offers little in the way of Great Lakes variety: It’s essentially a big, shallow bowl with isolated cover and structure that huge groups of smallmouth like to hang around. It’s hard to pass up St. Clair as a quality option for catching numbers, and tournaments can certainly be won on that body of water alone.
Erie is massive, and it’s packed full of boulders, drop-offs and pretty much anything else smallmouth love. It’s also susceptible to weather more than the Detroit River and St. Clair are. A little wind blowing in the wrong direction goes a long way in making Erie a treacherous run.
While largemouth can certainly play a part in winning bag (green kickers aren’t entirely uncommon), the smallmouth fishing on the sprawling playing field is too good to eschew entirely.
What to expect
Dobson’s experience in the August 10 BFL isn’t necessarily indicative of what’s coming in this event. Weather should be vastly different, and the smallmouth are starting to move closer to early fall patterns.
“We had hurricane west winds at 20 knots (last event),” Dobson said. “I ran up to St. Clair and caught one big one and a limit of little ones. Then I ran back to the Detroit River, culled out the four little ones and had 20 pounds, 3 ounces and came in fifth.
“The whole system’s fishing really well. It’s going to be pretty much up to the person that puts together the right pattern on the right body of water. It’s going to take 23 to 25 pounds to win.”
Still, there’s no magic bullet for catching the winning fish. According to Dobson, it’s going to come down to which angler executes the right pattern on the right fishery at the right time.
“It’s going to be another one of those tournaments where it’s pretty much going to be a toss-up where it’s going to be won,” he explained. “It could be won on St. Clair, could be won on the Detroit River, could be won on Lake Erie.
“Historically speaking, Lake Erie starts to shine end of August, but St. Clair has been such a great fishery this year with a lot of healthy fish; there’s a lot of bait, a lot of perch and a ton of crayfish in the lake this year.”
No matter where you fish, it’s likely many of the same baits will always be in play – namely, the drop-shot and a minnow setup optimized for forward-facing sonar. Dobson prefers a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Flat Worm or a 5-inch Z-Man Scented Jerk ShadZ or Strike King Z-Too for his drop-shot this time of year while any number of strolling baits have his confidence, from the Rapala Crush City Freeloader to a Deps Sakamata Shad.
Ultimately, the amount of quality water available to anglers in this event makes nearly everything a wild card – baits, patterns, locations, etc. The one thing that’s a virtual certainty, though, is that the winning weight is going to be impressive as always. That’s what you get at the Detroit River and connected lakes.