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BASS Elite Tour Review / Kelly Jordon / Cayuga Lake
Lucky Craft pro Kelly Jordon reviews BASS Elite tour at Cayuga Lake. The FLAT CB is a series of crank baits featuring styling that’s as functional as it is beautiful. This approach was born through exhaustive research in a technology called “Finesse cranking,” which is used commonly in the Southeast, where cranking baits have demonstrated their effectiveness. The lightweight SR, for example, is designed not to alarm bass upon landing on the water. A unique system that shifts the balance point of a high-specific-gravity tungsten weight allows the user to get the maximum distance at each cast without losing control. The powerful rolling action achieved by a low center of gravity produces an excellent reflection effect that enable us to catch bass on all tries-from the very first cast, on the first day of field-testing, indeed, it is a miracle bait design. The MR, DR, and D-12 were also developed under the same design concept: The user can choose the most suitable type, depending on water depth. Yet the most notable feature of these baits is the optimized oscillation rate achieved by their slender body designs. Unlike the FAT CB, which can be guided freely in water without being caught in the deadfall or rocks, the FLAT CB is suitable for use in open water, where it can lure bass hiding in rocky crevices or structure, or to catch schooling fish one by one without alarming the rest. Try it, and see for yourself the effect that optimized oscilliation can have. (Flat CB-MR dives 4ft)
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Project T 2014 Episode 4 “Zillion Rod”
Ish Monroe and Brent Ehrler talk about NEW ZILLION Rod
St. Clair River Welcomes Northern Open
DETROIT — You couldn’t ask for a more perfect battlefield than Lake St. Clair when the final leg of the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Northern Open #3 presented by Allstate kicks off Sept. 4-6.
St. Clair is a unique body of water that is fed by Lake Huron via the St. Clair River and empties into Lake Erie via the Detroit River. The lake only averages 11 feet deep and is chock-full of smallmouth, largemouth, walleye, muskies and Northern pike, along with various panfish and other species.
It’s 26 miles long, 24 miles wide at its widest point and borders Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario.
Opens anglers seeking that final divisional Bassmaster Classic spot shouldn’t have much trouble catching fish, but they will be faced with some tough decisions when they launch the first of the three-day event.
Do they stay in St. Clair, where limits come easier?
Do they commit to making the grueling run down the Detroit River and into Lake Erie, where big bass are plentiful?
Do they do as Chris Lane did in the Bassmaster Elite event held here in 2013 and target bass in the St. Clair River?
Or, do they gamble on largemouth in backwater canals?
“Anyone making the risky run to Erie is fishing to win,” said The Bassmasters TV host Mark Zona, a Michigan resident who has made several trips to St. Clair this summer. “The problem is that weather/wind conditions have to be good for three consecutive days to accomplish that, and that doesn’t happen often.”
Zona says that anyone who finds the right Lake Erie school for three days can blow it away. “But if you want to play it safe and shoot for a Top 20 finish, St. Clair is the place to be,” he added.
On the other hand, St. Clair fishing guide Gerry Gostenik believes St. Clair could produce the winner. “It’s taking 22 to 23 pounds to win local tournaments here this summer,” he said. “The fish are healthy, and the water is up about a foot compared to when B.A.S.S. was here last year.”
Nonetheless, it has been a strange year for the veteran guide, who said his clients will have some great days and struggle on others.
“The fish don’t seem to be as tightly schooled as they have in previous years,” he noted. “One thing, there’s more cabbage in the lake than I’ve ever seen. You used to be able to find a small patch of cabbage and catch 20. Now there are large cabbage beds and the fish aren’t as easy to target.”
The key is to locate large concentrations of forage fish. On Erie and in the rivers, it’s gobies. And while there are gobies in Lake St. Clair, they tend to run smaller; hence yellow perch are the primary targets of smallmouth.
“Finding perch schools will be key,” Gostenik said. “That’s what the bigger bass are eating.”
Also, early September is a time when a lot of the baitfish migrate to the rivers, and bass will follow them.
“From the first full moon in August and into October, the rivers become a player,” Zona said. “We haven’t seen many tournaments in September, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the mouth of the Detroit River becomes a big factor this time. When the bait is moving into the river mouth, you don’t get on schools of 20 bass — there are schools of 200 there, if conditions are right.”
Tournament anglers will take off daily from Metropark in Harrison Township at 7 a.m. The first two days, weigh-ins will be held at Metropark at 3 p.m., but on Day 3, only the Top 12 finalists will compete, and the weigh-in will be held at Bass Pro Shops in Auburn Hills beginning at 4:15 p.m.
2014 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Opens Series Title Sponsor: Bass Pro Shops
2014 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Opens Series Presenting Sponsor: Allstate
2014 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Opens Series Official Sponsors: Toyota, Berkley, Evan Williams Bourbon, Humminbird, Mercury, Minn Kota, Nitro Boats, Skeeter Boats, Triton Boats, Yamaha
2014 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Opens Series Supporting Sponsors: Boat U.S., Booyah, Carhartt, Diet Mountain Dew, Livingston Lures, Lowrance, Plano, Power-Pole, Rigid Industries, Shimano
About B.A.S.S.
B.A.S.S. is the worldwide authority on bass fishing and keeper of the culture of the sport. Headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., the 500,000-member organization’s fully integrated media platforms include the industry’s leading magazines (Bassmaster and B.A.S.S. Times), website (Bassmaster.com), television show (The Bassmasters on ESPN2), social media programs and events. For more than 45 years, B.A.S.S. has been dedicated to access, conservation and youth fishing.
The Bassmaster Tournament Trail includes the most prestigious events at each level of competition, including the Bassmaster Elite Series, Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Open Series presented by Allstate, B.A.S.S. Nation events, Carhartt Bassmaster College Series, Bassmaster High School Series, Toyota Bonus Bucks Bassmaster Team Championship and the ultimate celebration of competitive fishing, the GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by Diet Mountain Dew and GoPro.
Cranking Grass was Key for Team Livingston at Cayuga Lake, Can be for You, Too
UNION SPRINGS, N.Y. – Wednesday rules meeting on the Bassmaster Elite Series trail is always an interesting place to pick up information about baits that will be effective on a particular fishery that particular week. The afternoon before the recent Cayuga Lake Elite in Union Springs, N.Y., it was obvious that the crankbait would be a major tool for Cayuga’s weed-relating bass.
Jeff Kriet: “Dive Master 14 in XXX Shad.”
Brent Chapman: “Dive Master 14 and 20 in XXX Shad.”
Randy Howell: “Dive Master 20 and Howeller DMC in XXX Shad and Chartreuse Shad.”
Hank Cherry: “Dive Master 14 in XXX Shad.”
Check. Message received. When fishing lakes with well-defined grasslines and expansive grassy flats, medium- to deep-diving crankbaits are key. Not to mention, adding natural baitfish sounds, EBS Technology™ and you have the perfect bait for these conditions.
“Cayuga had these giant, vast flats of aquatic vegetation: milfoil, cabbage, coontail, hydrilla,” says Chapman, who relied heavily on the Dive Master 14 and 20 in XXX Shad to crank his way to a seventh-place finish. “You get out on these giant flats and it’s really hard to pinpoint exactly where the fish are. But knowing that bass love edges, you can get on the edges of these giant flats and cover water with crankbaits, coaxing them out with the sound technology of Livingston Lures. That worked really well for me at Cayuga.”
The technique isn’t relegated just to lakes as heavily grassy as Cayuga, though. Anywhere in the country where grass exists, a bait like a Dive Master or Howeller DMC with EBS Technology will allow you to cover water and put a bait in front of active, aggressive fish and call them out to strike- even if they can’t see the bait they can hear it.
“There are a lot of the lakes down south that are famous for cranking those edges, but I’ve done it all over the country,” Chapman says. “I’ve done it in Texas, Alabama, Florida, and now New York. It works all over the country, on a variety of grasses.”
Chapman’s edge-cranking approach started on Day 1 at Cayuga, where he weighed in 19.1 pounds by alternating between the DM 14 and DM 20 depending on the depth of the grasslines he was fishing near Frontenac Park in Union Springs. If the grass was deep, Chapman would throw the DM 20 on 12-pound fluorocarbon; shallower grasslines called for the DM 14 on the same line. Chapman occasionally rotated in a rod rigged with lighter line to get an additional foot of dive, but the 12-pound fluoro and natural diving depths of the DM 14 and 20 were perfect for almost all applications on Cayuga’s grass.
Crank INTO the grass: One of the keys to Chapman’s approach – and a good rule of thumb to remember anytime you’re cranking grass – is to get the bait into the grass. Both largemouth and smallmouth will occasionally move out of a grass bed to hit a bait running overhead, but they don’t tend to respond the same way they will when they’re suspended. Consequently, virtually 99 times out of 100, the most effective crankbait you’re throwing in grass is one that’s running right through the vegetation. Livingston Lures make natural baitfish sounds so in conditions such as this, fish are already on the hunt for it before they see it.
“You want the bait to grab and snag as it goes through the grass,” Chapman confirms. “If you’re fishing the bait right, you bring grass back on the bait every three or four casts because you’re getting it down into the grass. That’s where the bite is.”
Work inside-out or parallel: Chapman’s “lines” on Cayuga depended on how the grass edges ran, but in almost all occasions, he’d set up to work the DM 14 and 20 from shallow to deep, or parallel to a well-defined edge. He’d also cover the edges from slightly different angles, which effectively put his bait in virtually every square inch of the grassline where bass would most likely lay.
The conditions were perfect to utilize EBS Technology™: Vegetation limits the sight of predatory fish but Cayuga’s bass could still hear both the DM 14 and 20 before they saw it.
Get all your Livingston Lures here.
The Best Shades
Good sunglasses are important as any other tool you will use during a day on the water. Good glasses can set you back a few dollars and there is not much worse than watching them sink to the bottom if they happen to fall off your head and into the drink. Elite Series pro Fred Roumbanis has the answer to lost shades.