How many follow professional Bass Fishing?

I’m guessing he was sharp shooting with about $12,000 worth of screens up front?

My understanding is that the first 3 days the fish were in shallower water near cover and FFS didn’t play much of a role. The last day they moved offshore and Taku Ito dialed in his scope skills for the win. He’s probably got $50k worth of electronics on his boat.

Just wait until the final two events which are on northern smallmouth waters. Its will be 100% scoping offshore structure with a vertical presentation. Where’s my puke emoji

Great bass tourney going on at lake Champlain. Several mid-west fishermen doing well. Looks like some are chasing SM and others LM. Most are going to fish a mix. Some started on LM and will switch to SM and others started SM and once a limit they are switching to LM. The LM will play a bigger roll here this year. The SM are running a little smaller than in past years. Not sure if a LM bite will hold up for all 4 days for a fishermen. Think a mix is going to be needed.

I’ve been watching a little bit of the Live coverage and haven’t seen a lot of scoping going on. Feider has been flipping almost all day, catching two 5+ pounders. The largemouth are definitely playing a role.

I saw him catch a big one on a frog too.

Feider sitting in 1st for the moment. Glad to see him doing well. The southern swing seemed to be a grind for him.

Joe Jarl wrote:

Feider sitting in 1st for the moment. Glad to see him doing well. The southern swing seemed to be a grind for him.

Ya he’s been having a tough season. Probably his worst since his rookie season when he was about ready to give up the sport. A few good events to end the season could really turn his season around. I hope he has some quality SM located. I don’t think he can win this on Just LM. I think the quality and #’s of LM will fall over each day.

as usual Seth’s basstrack weight was a little off. 23-11 is a monster bass. It included 2 LM that were both close to 6 Lbs. I’d love to see him keep it up, but I don’t think he can do this again tomorrow on LM. As good of a SM fishermen as he is I’d like to think he can stay near the lead if he has to switch to SM. I just hope he does not stay with the LM for to long if it does not work out on the LM tomorrow.

Bad weather has forced cancellation of todays fishing. Hope the wind lays down so they can get back at it again tomorrow. This is a lake I’d not want to be on in high winds for sure.

I think he’s running out of juice on those largemouth. I didn’t see any live action today but from what I read that seems to be the case. He dropped out of the top 10 after day 2 but is still in the top 50 so he will fish day 3. Gonna need to move up a few spots to fish on day 4.

Mike Iconelli aka “Ike” has a despicable display of poor sportsmanship at the day 2 weigh in. They read his weight and he completely ignored questions from the coordinator and fans in attendance, walking off stage immediately. I’ve never been a fan of his antics or on camera nonsense but this was even worse. What a complete dick.

Gim i could’nt agree more.I never liked Ike even before i saw him treat people like $h!t.

Looking to be a close finish to this one. No surprise that the Johnston Brothers are both near the top. Those Canadian boys sure know how to do well on SM waters. See the crazy one Matt Robertson is also near the top. Never know what he’s likely to do or say on a weigh in stage. Was a decent event for most of the mid-west fishermen. Seth kind of fell off after day 1. I think he relied on those LM a little to much. Not sure why as he use to be one of the top SM fishermen. I think all these young fishermen have caught up to him on all the electronics. I guess I don’t mind all the video game electronic fishing as much as others. I’m personally not a big fan of FFS, But its here now and for now the Pro’s are going to use it to their advantage.

There is one event left starting on Thursday at the St Lawrence. The top 10 anglers who had to finish today at Champlain missed a day of practice at the St Lawrence. It’s the second time that’s occurred this season.

Wisconsin native Jay Przekurat is currently in 6th place in the AOY standings. He still has an outside chance to win that prestigious award if all the chips fall correctly. I think he finished in the top 10 last year and was Rookie of the year two years ago.

The final stop on the Elites has started at the St Lawrence River today.

Apparently a MLF/BPT event was held there just last weekend, so some of these fish might be tough to catch. Their format is an immediate catch and release, whereas this is a live weigh in.

I heard that some anglers are targeting smallmouth in 50+ feet of water. That seems like a recipe for barotrauma. Pluck them out of 53 feet of water, place them in a livewell, haul them around in a bass boat, hold them up at a weigh in, and then try to release them in 10 feet of water 8 hours later. BASS needs to do better than this. Half those fish are gonna be dead.

Gim do you really think the fish will be near the bottom? I would hazard a guess they would be suspended above the thermocline.

They’re targeting them just off the bottom with a drop shot on livescope.

Yeah that wont be good. I dont follow it so didnt know that.

I totally forgot about that starting today. By the time I had a chance to sign on the live coverage was already on break. I hope it returns for a few Hours prior to weigh in. Looks like about 10 bags already over 19 Lbs with several over 22 Lb. This one often stays close and comes down to the final hours on the final day. People seem to fish a little different based on where they are in the AOY standings. Always like to watch them fight big SM on lighter tackle. I agree that catching these fish out of deeper water has to take a tool on them. How many survive after release we will never know. Far more than when lots of people fish them and keep to eat. Not that I’m against eating the proper size SM when caught out of deeper cooler water and properly handled prior to cleaning. Most here would have no idea how good tasting they are and have never ate one. I can tell you they are as good or better than any walleye or crappie I have ever had.

The weather looks real nice out there and lots of anglers are out on the lake.
I’m not sure how deep everyone is fishing, but Chris Johnston had his sonar showing and he was fishing in less than 20′. He even went “old school” and has been catching fish on a tube jig!

Currently 21 showing over 20 lbs and 38 over 19 lbs. that’s some nice bags of fish. Didn’t get to watch much today. Will have to try and catch some tomorrow.

30 of the first 40 to weigh in have 20lbs+

Got to watch some coverage this morning. Some good action going on out there. It was painful to watch one of the Johnston brothers fishing right between two rookies and having to watch them catch lots of 5 pounders on each side of him and him having 0 fish in his live well. To make matters worse he lost a big fish to start his day. The crew did discuss the FFS issue and their thoughts on its effects on fishing and how it will effect fishing in the future. They said you can already see the effect on fish. They said when FFS started almost every fish you located you caught. Now these fish are seeing more and more baits it’s getting harder to catch them even once locating them. Need to learn to read the mood of the fish and adjust accordingly. They said back when it started they were catching lots of fish they felt had never seen a lure. They don’t believe that is the case these days.

I’m sure FFS does have an effect on educating the fish, but the SLR/Thousand Islands has gotten so much pressure in the last number of years with elites, mlf, opens, college, high school and other local tournaments becoming more prevalent there. Plus more of them seem to be going out into the lake rather than sticking to the river. I think a combination of fishing pressure and FFS has educated the fish.

blank wrote:

I think a combination of fishing pressure and FFS has educated the fish.

Most certainly. In fact just a week ago there was a mutli-day MLF/BPT event held there.

The time of year and where most of the bigger fish are is dictating how most of these anglers have to fish. Its primarily in deeper offshore waters with a vertical presentation, staring at screens.

If they would have some of these smallmouth events earlier in the season, other tactics would come into play.

blank wrote:

I think a combination of fishing pressure and FFS has educated the fish.

I think a lot of the fishing pressure on those fish are due to FFS

gimruis wrote:

If they would have some of these smallmouth events earlier in the season, other tactics would come into play.

I would like to see BASS switch up some of the normal lakes and fish them at different times of the season as well. I think they set them up as to when the most and biggest fish will be caught. It also make it easier on the fishermen to locate fish quicker being back at the same locations at the same time period each year. Not sure if that is helping showcase who the best fishermen are. It funny how some of the technology changes is bringing some of the younger rookies to the top of the standings and to the top of the AOY race. This never happened in the past. Time on the body of water always trumped technology. Not so much so these days.

Yes, I agree. When was the last time they had an event west of the Rocky Mtns? There have to be some decent western reservoirs worth fishing. The furthest west I can recall them fishing is on Lake Oahe.

Is the pressure really having an affect on the fish? Nearly the entire field had their 5 fish bag and over half the field was over 20lbs on day one.

I don’t think its necessarily affecting the health or numbers of the fish themselves. Clearly the weights indicate that its doing just fine.

You could make the argument that its made the fishing tougher though.

That’s mostly what I’m questioning. Has it made the fishing tougher? The results don’t show that. I guess only the anglers could answer that, but that would involve a lot of variables as well.