TRENTON, Mich. – The Tackle Warehouse Invitationals season will wrap up with Stop 6 Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches at the Detroit River July 26-28. Heading to the challenging smallmouth playground should be a fitting end to the season, and it will provide a fascinating backdrop for the conclusion of an electric Fishing Clash Angler of the Year race.

Detroit River

Trenton, Mich.

July 26-28, 2024

Hosted by the Detroit Sports Commission

Tournament details

About the fishery

Taking off from Elizabeth Park, near the Lake Erie side of the Detroit River, the pros have a big playing field to work with. Turning left out of takeoff will take them up the river into Lake St. Clair, or the St. Clair River if they choose. Turning right gives the pros access to all the water in Lake Erie, for as far out into the Great Lake as they care to run.

Loaded with big smallmouth (and lots of largemouth as well), the playing field is a real conundrum – there’s more water than anyone could look at in a year, and depending on the wind, it could all be pretty treacherous.

The two main players in the event are likely to be Erie and St. Clair. The latter is a big, shallow bowl, with little variation and lots of bass. There, 20 feet is pretty deep, and the smallmouth spend their time dotted up around sand patches, clumps of grass and chasing perch. A stopover for water between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, St. Clair has a lot of current and isn’t really like anything else.

Erie is the other player, and it’s where Great Lakes smallmouth chasing got its start, when folks like Steve Clapper pioneered long runs in rough conditions for untapped smallmouth populations.

“Erie has a bunch of big boulders, it’s got drops, it’s got humps – all the stuff smallmouth like to get on,” explained Troy Stokes. “It’s more structure-oriented; you’ve got to know how to read it and understand how fish are going to set up depending on how the wind is blowing.”

Last time

Back in 2018, Chad Grigsby blasted them on a tube and a spybait to win. Photo by Kyle Wood.

Really analogous history to this tournament is tough to come by, as exactly where events launch from matters a lot on the fishery. In 2020, taking off out of Sandusky, Justin Lucas won the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Super Tournament with almost a 20-pound average – then, he fished in Erie and Canadian waters were off-limits. In that event, Lake Erie was the key player, but several pros made the run from Sandusky to St. Clair – 90 miles or so – and ‘Scoped up limits of smallmouth good enough to make the Top 10.

In 2018, Chad Grigsby won an FLW Tour event on St. Clair with nearly 100 pounds, which launched in St. Clair and was largely fought out there and in the St. Clair River. The most recent big event to launch out of the Detroit River was a 2020 Toyota Series event won by Scott Dobson – with two days of wind, the field was locked in the river, and even on the final day, Dobson caught very few fish in St. Clair.

It remains to be seen how prescient it is, but the tournament on the minds of most anglers will be the recent Bassmaster Open on St. Clair. Won in St. Clair with a 25-pound average by Jay Przekurat, it featured extremely high weights, all caught from St. Clair.

What to expect this time

A key to the event is where the best fishing will be. In the 2020 Super Tournament, Jacob Wheeler actually fished in St. Clair and Erie for his runner-up showing. Photo by Sean Ostruszka.

Obviously, you can expect a lot of smallmouth bass, but beyond that, there’s a good deal to be decided. Launching out of the Detroit River makes the best fishing in Erie and St. Clair fairly even to access, which will give anglers lots of options. Plus, even leaving out all the options, the fishing looks really good in general.

“You’re gonna have a lot more guys fishing St. Clair,” Stokes opined. “That’s partially because the Open just smashed them there, but even without that, I think most guys would have went to Clair because it’s more consistent. Erie definitely has winning potential, but you have to be careful going out there. Its more susceptible to wind, the water getting dirty, and just more volatile in general. If you’re going to fish Clair or the St. Clair River, it’s more consistent and easier to catch limits of fish. On Erie, you might be on the mother lode, and if they decide to move, you’re going to have to know Erie pretty well to be able to adjust quickly and make that happen.”

Ordinarily, late July can be a little bit of an in-between time on the Great Lakes, with fish hung between shallow and deep and not long off beds. This year, that won’t be the case.

“I think everything is about two weeks ahead, and that was consistent across Champlain as well,” Stokes said. “Normally this is a pretty tricky time of year, but because it’s ahead, I think we’re going to have an absolute slugfest. I think you’re going to be able to catch them anywhere you want.”

One of the big questions is if St. Clair can sustain the pressure, or if more remote fish in Erie will be the better call.

“Everybody knows where to go on St. Clair right now,” Stokes said. “That stuff is going to get beat up. I think it’s going to hold up, because that seems to be the thing on Clair. When you find a mega-school of smallmouth, it’s hard to beat ‘em up. But guys that can get out into Erie, find something else in St. Clair, if you could do something a little bit different, I think you’d have a good chance of maybe winning the thing.”

Still, when St. Clair is firing and the population is concentrated in a certain area, Stokes says it can be hard to compete with the potential.

“When Chad Grigsby won, I kind of shied away from that area, because literally every single person knew about it,” Stokes admitted. “Well, every tournament for a month got won there. When you find an area where the mega-school is, they’re so big that you literally can not fish them out.”

Headlines to watch for

The Angler of the Year race should go down to the wire.

Being the last event of the year, points considerations are going to be of prime importance, and considering the tightness of the race between Jake Lawrence and Alec Morrison, it’s likely that we won’t have a final answer on AOY and Polaris Rookie of the Year until Day 3. The same could be the case for the battle for the five Bass Pro Tour spots, where the top contenders are tightly grouped and fishing great.

Fishing Clash Angler of the Year – Lawrence and Morrison have put on a show this year, and considering their skillset, that should continue at St. Clair. You’d have to be crazy to sleep on this one.
Where it gets won – With so much in play, there is the potential for some pretty cool happenings. There are some locals in the event who are primed to make big runs into Erie, and plenty of others who have deep knowledge of the fishery. This will be a good event to add to the Great Lakes record books.
The weather – Fishing on the Great Lakes requires decent weather or heroic efforts. While no days will get cancelled due to the presence of the Detroit River, the event is going to swing on the weather to a large degree. Calm days will favor catching, and rough water will make the fishing pretty intense.

Follow along

You can watch the action from Stop 6 Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches at the Detroit River unfold live on MLFNOW! from 7 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. ET.on MajorLeagueFishing.com and the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app, and stay locked to the website for on-the-water galleries, daily stories and more.