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Brandon Lester has done very well in past events on Lake St. Clair, and he doesn’t hide his love of the smallmouth and the refreshing Southeast Michigan weather. The Team Toyota pro just wishes he had time to sample some of the better food offerings in the area.

Q: When somebody says the words “Lake St. Clair” – what’s the first thing that pops to mind?

Lester: That’s easy, big waves and big smallmouth!

Q: What should fans keep their eye on during this week’s Bassmaster Elite Series event?

Lester: It’s gonna be another full-blown smallmouth beatdown. I’m not sure the average smallmouth is quite as fat this year as they were last September when we were here, but it’s still going to be pretty dang impressive. Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this place be anything short of awesome.

Q: This area is famous for a lot of great food including deep fried perch and Coney Island hot dogs. What’s the best thing you’ve eaten in the five days you’ve been here so far?

Lester: Oh man, I’m staying in a hotel all by myself. So I’m hurting in the good food department. It’s been all about ‘fast and easy’ the past five days. So probably a spicy chicken sandwich from Popeyes.

Q: What are you most looking forward to in this particular Bassmaster Elite event on St. Clair?

Lester: The weather, and I love catching smallmouth! We have plenty of big smallmouth at home in Tennessee, but it’s brutally hot there, and it feels like early fall here. It was 57 degrees this morning when I launched.

Q: Lastly, name three lures you won’t leave the dock without Thursday morning.

Lester: An X-Zone Slammer on a drop shot, an X-Zone Ned Zone, and a crankbait that will run 12 to 15-feet deep.

The post Brandon Lester Talks Spicy Chicken and St. Clair Smallmouth appeared first on Bass365.com.

Caleb Sumrall cut his bass fishing teeth on the shallow bayous of Southern Louisiana pitching soft plastic lures around cypress trees and thick vegetation – pretty much bass fishing’s polar opposite of what he’ll face this week at the YETI Bassmaster Elite on Lake St. Clair.

But the former petroleum industry supply yard worker is a quick learner – and bagged a Top 20 at his very first tournament on St. Clair last September.

Not only did he learn really fast the waves here get equally as big as the smallmouth, but he’ll also be quick to tell you it’s not all about dragging a tube or drop shot around. Instead, crankbaits are a major player on St. Clair too.

“Obviously, there’s plenty of history to prove that you can do really well, or even win tournaments here with a tube or drop shot. But it’s really hard to cover this massive body of open water, especially in practice, with just tubes and drop shots. So that’s where the beauty of a crankbait shines. I can cover a lot more water with it, and smallmouth flat-out eat crankbaits here,” explains Sumrall.

When asked why he believes St. Clair smallies have an appetite for ‘diving plugs’ he reasons it’s because they largely feed by sight, often roaming in open water looking for abundant numbers of yellow perch and gizzard shad, looking up and outward in the water column, as opposed to purely searching the bottom for crawdads or the occasional goby.

Sumrall also warns that spending too much time riding around looking at sonar screens in search of schools hanging on a ledge or drop like one might do at Guntersville, Pickwick, or Toledo Bend can be a waste of time on St. Clair.

“You typically don’t see a lot of schools on the bottom here like you do at those famous largemouth fisheries,” says Sumrall. “Here, you’re looking for really subtle changes on the bottom that might hold fish, but mostly casting to find the fish, rather than just dropping waypoints on organized schools,” says Sumrall, who trusts a Yamaha-powered Xpress aluminum boat on these big waters.

Point is, smallmouth roam and hunt, versus southern largemouth that lay and wait on the food to pass by. Hopefully, this week, St. Clair’s smallmouth will hunt down Sumrall’s Spro Fat Papa crankbait that dives 10 to 14-feet deep.

If so, look for the highly likeable pro from deep in Southern Louisiana to bag another Top 20 — roughly a 19-hour drive from the shallow flooded cypress trees back home.

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Bass Fishing Event Completes Week-Long Shoot in Northern Minnesota with 16 Pro Anglers Competing to Win 2020 World Championship

TULSA, Okla. (Aug. 19, 2020) – Major League Fishing (MLF) recently wrapped production at the 2020 General Tire World Championship event in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

The event, hosted by Visit Grand Rapids and filmed entirely for television broadcast, was shot over six days in late July and featured 16 of the world’s best pro anglers culminating their MLF Cup season as they compete for the top prize of $100,000 and the title of Major League Fishing General Tire World Champion. The League previously visited the area to film the 2017 MLF Summit Cup event.

“We had a fantastic, record-breaking catch when MLF visited the area in 2017, and it made the decision to return for our World Championship event a no-brainer,” said Marty Stone, Director of Event Research and Program Analyst for Major League Fishing. “There is such a great mixture of fisheries in this area. Deep-water fishing, shallow-water fishing, largemouth or smallmouth, these northern lakes seem to have it all. It was a great week of fishing for our anglers and I can’t wait to watch it all play out on the Discovery Channel later this Fall.”

The six-episode, two-hour series features the professional anglers visiting Northern Minnesota to compete on four different fisheries across the region, including Pokegama Lake, Wabana Lake, Turtle Lake, and Spider Lake. The fisheries are unknown to the anglers prior to competing. An aspect of MLF Cup competition is the anglers do not learn where they are competing until they arrive to the launch ramp each morning of competition, which makes bait selection and electronics pre-event research less of a factor in MLF Cups.

“We are so grateful to Megan Christianson at Visit Grand Rapids and legendary Minnesota Fishing Guide Tom Neustrom for all of their hard work and guidance in making the General Tire World Championship a success,” said Michael Mulone, MLF Senior Director of Events & Partnerships. “Megan and the community once again rolled out the red carpet. Tom worked tirelessly to ensure the angler and staff experience, both on and off the water, was second to none. Fans are going to be so excited to watch the action from one of America’s premier fishing destinations.”

The 16 anglers fishing in the General Tire World Championship are: Casey Ashley, Brent Ehrler, Edwin Evers, Bobby Lane, Jordan Lee, Jared Lintner, Aaron Martens, Cody Meyer, Andy Montgomery, Michael Neal, Takahiro Omori, Jacob Powroznik, Mark Rose, Jeff Sprague, Greg Vinson and Jacob Wheeler. For more information on the qualifying process, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com/MLF-101.

The General Tire World Championship, hosted by Visit Grand Rapids, will air on the Discovery Channel as six, two-hour original episodes each Saturday morning starting Oct. 10, 2020, airing from 7 to 9 a.m. EDT. The full television schedule can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com/tv-schedule.

For complete details and updated information visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

About Major League Fishing
Founded in 2011, Major League Fishing (MLF) brings the high-intensity sport of competitive bass fishing into America’s living rooms on Outdoor Channel, Discovery, CBS, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network, Sportsman Channel, and on-demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). According to Nielsen ratings, Major League Fishing remains the number one series on Outdoor Channel for five years and MLF premiered as the number one outdoor show in their time slot on Discovery in 2019.

In 2019 MLF acquired FLW, which expands their portfolio to include the world’s largest grassroots-fishing organization, including the strongest five-fish format professional bass fishing tour, the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit, as well as the Toyota Series, Phoenix Bass Fishing League presented by T-H Marine, and Abu Garcia College Fishing presented by YETI, and High School Fishing presented by Favorite Fishing.

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When it comes to finding and catching smallmouth bass, few people on this planet rival the skills of Major League Fishing pro Josh Bertrand. The ‘cool as a cucumber’ Arizona native proved this yet again at the FLW Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Super Tournament on Lake Erie with a 3^rd place finish and an extra $3,000 prize from Toyota Bonus Bucks.

Bertrand’s Tundra features a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent wrap, and it comes as no surprise that a green pumpkin MaxScent Flat Worm rigged on a dropshot was responsible for every fish he weighed in last week.

“We’ve heard it a lot this year, but the Flat Worm was absolutely crucial,” Bertrand explained. “I have 100% confidence in a Flat Worm and a dropshot for northern smallmouth. I literally never strayed from that presentation in practice or the tournament, which made me much more efficient. I was able to focus on finding fish, not weeding through different baits.”

The Berkley pro successfully milked his areas on Lake Erie for all they were worth and was happy to be making the 30-hour haul back to Arizona with a top three finish. Long drives have been a constant theme for Bertrand throughout his career, and so has towing with a Toyota Tundra.

“I’m currently driving my 3^rd Tundra and the reliability is absolutely my favorite thing about my truck,” Bertrand said. “In eight years I’ve logged close to 300,000 miles towing a boat, and I’ve literally never had a problem. I can’t explain how comforting it is to know I’m driving a reliable vehicle when cruising through the desert or in the middle of nowhere. It can’t be overstated.”

Bertrand estimates he has earned somewhere in the ballpark of $25,000 of contingency rewards from Toyota Bonus Bucks over the last eight years. But Bonus Bucks isn’t only for touring professional anglers – you can get in on the rewards, too!

As long as you drive a 2016 or newer Toyota tow vehicle, have registered (for free) for the program, and fish one of the hundreds of supported bass or walleye tournaments you are eligible for Bonus Bucks.

For program information, full lists of events, or to get registered for the program follow this link: https://www.toyotatrucksbonusbucks.com/ . If you’d rather call than click, dial (918) 742-6424 and Chip or Kendell will be happy to help you out.

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