Lake St. Clair Big Stack - Tournament

Tournament day brought calm winds and a very wet morning. I’m sure you’ve heard about big water smallmouth really loving the sun. This definitely made me nervous as it was going to be fairly dark for a long time. I still anticipated a window of morning activity even with it being dark but I had no actual experience to back that up.

There are no points in Big Stack this year, the only thing that matters is winning. When that’s all that matters you have no choice but to go to your biggest fish. There’s a little less strategy to it because well if you end up not doing well it doesn’t really matter. My game plan was to spend 4 hours where my biggest fish were and hopefully get 3 of them. Or maybe I would get 5 of them, we would just have to see how it went. There were a couple of other areas I wanted to fish around there so I was hoping to be able to bounce around at the channel mouth a bit. Then I had a couple of other schools that had nice ones I could utilize if I just needed a couple fish. I really felt like fish were coming to my spot in Anchor Bay and I was very excited to fish that area later in the day.

I had a middle of the pack take off number and when I arrived to my area there were 2 tournament boats sitting right on it. There was a secondary area open so rather than try and get in on the outskirts of that spot I headed there. I spent quite a bit of time on that current break with only 1 bite to show for it. I was still waiting for those boats to move and decided to just fish around for a few hours hoping they would leave. After wasting almost 3 hours there with nothing to show for it I decided I needed to start spending my tournament time in water I knew was productive. I wasn’t going to be around the magnums but I still thought I could get to 20 pounds. I just wasn’t catching any heavy 4s in these areas but I could get a lucky bite or 2 and get in the game. I wanted to work my way back towards Anchor Bay and fish places that I knew had them or areas that seemed to have a lot of life but the fish weren’t there in practice. I’m always hopeful to collide with a school on tournament day in an area that looks right even though it was vacant in practice.

My first stop was a clean spot in some current where I had caught some fish and seen a really big one follow my bait up in practice. It didn’t take long and I spied one on the Humminbird MEGA 360. I pitched my drop shot over there and he was on there when I tightened up. This fish wasn’t that big, maybe 3 ¼ pounds but it took me around the boat 3 times before I could finally land it. The downside is that during the lengthy battle I had drifted up on top of the spot and shut it down. The next couple areas were places I thought they were coming to and they produced no bites. I wish I knew what species of fish I was seeing on 360 there. It was just a lot of life compared to the surrounding and I’m sure the bass showed up there at some point.

I hit a spot off of the Metropark next, I have no clue why a school was there but they stayed right where I found them. I caught another keeper while approaching the area and while it wasn’t a big one things were trending in the right direction. The next fish was one over 4 pounds and I was just getting settled into the area. I could see them down there with the 360 (I can’t wait to get MEGA Live) and started picking away at them. I filled my limit shortly after with a dropshot and then lost one on a crankbait. Things seemed to shut down at that point and I had to keep moving despite knowing that these fish were still there. Next stop was an area with sand grass or maybe some weird clay divots, I’m not entirely sure but it was distinct from a lot of the places I fished. It had some nice ones the first day of practice. I ended up culling twice here, once with a crankbait and once with a dropshot. The bad news is neither of those were nice fish.

It was finally time to get to my Anchor Bay area and I was ready to make a mess. I knew I was in trouble when I didn’t catch one or get a perch bite on my first few casts. I had planned for them to move so I had spent some time in practice trying to determine which direction they were heading. I felt pretty good about what I had figured out so I didn’t waste much time and started covering water trying to find them in my chosen direction. It seemed that if you got around them you would get a bite pretty quickly so wasting time around a set of waypoints that had previously been productive didn’t make much sense to me.

I never ended up catching up with them, I’m sure they weren’t too far away but I just never got my boat or bait in the right spot. I decided I was just going to head back to the school that was there and at least have some more fun. The odds of me catch 4 more fish over 4 pounds wasn’t good there. The girls were coming to the weigh in so while I wasn’t going to make up enough ground to get paid in the tournament I had some extra motivation to catch a few more for them. Even though it was going to be embarrassing I was going to weigh in so they could see the fish. I’ve got no problem looking stupid if it helps their interest in fish just a little bit.

I caught a few more out there and culled once more I think. I did lose another fish that would help but it isn’t like it really mattered. I do enjoy catching them on that dropshot though it is really a lot of fun and the Favorite Fishing Jackhammer 7’2” med light really plays them out well. I think I had 2 or 3 fish come off on that setup all week.

It is disappointing to not have them at a weigh in when the girls show up. But to them they looked big as 16lbs is usually a pretty good day on the home lakes. But on Lake St. Clair that gets you nowhere! Some monster bags were weighed in with a 26lb bag plus a 7 pounder taking the win. It was impressive for sure and I certainly felt stupid at the weigh in. Regardless of my finish I did really enjoy my time on the Lake. It was much more interesting vs going over there in the spring and just catching them. I definitely prefer fishing there when it is really fishing and not catching. There is an incredible amount of water that holds fish and it is overwhelming but I’ll have a little better handle on things next time.

The best part was Mabel putting them back. I was pretty impressed with her lipping and holding a fish up that was over 3 pounds. She certainly is brave for a 4 year old and doesn’t have any fear of fish. I’m looking forward to another year of Big Stack next year. While I’m frustrated I went 0-2 on checks I did enjoy the change of pace this series brought and can’t wait to see how it goes next year. Until then I’m off to Elk/Torch for the D&R classic (and unfortunately not duck hunting). I don’t know what to expect up there especially with the drastically different weather days forecasted. It should be an interesting one and I’ll report back how it goes.