Detroit, Southern Fried

Plano Championship Chase winner, Chris Lane, B.A.S.S. Photo by James Overstreet

Pre-tournament prognostications for virtually any national tournament held on the Great Lakes talk about the fickle nature of big-water smallmouths and the lakes themselves and an inside track northern anglers supposedly possess. Most picks are heavily loaded with names of northern "smallmouth specialists," almost to the point that it would seem no "expert" believes a southern angler could possibly figure out northern smallmouths in a big lake.

It would seem, however, that Detroit's biggest smallmouths forgot to ask the experts which lures they were supposed to favor. First place in the Elite Series season finale' on Michigan's Lake St. Clair went to Chris Lane, who grew up in central Florida, where no smallmouths live, and now calls Alabama home. Second and third went to Mark Davis of Arkansas and Alton Jones of Texas.

Actually, if you look down the list of the twelve anglers who made today's final round of fishing, only one, Nate Wellman of Michigan, is from Great Lakes country. Morizo Shimizu still lists Osaka, Japan as home. Beyond Wellman and Shimizu, addresses from Top 12 finishers include five from Alabama, three from Texas, one from Arkansas and one from West Virginia.

I'll acknowledge a few of the Top 12 anglers moved to Alabama or Texas (although not from northern states). I'll likewise acknowledge that there are far more Elite Series anglers from the South than the North, thus stacking the deck. That said, most pre-tournament stories would suggest if there were dozen northern anglers in a Great Lakes tournament, you should expect them to fill 2/3 of the top dozen or so places.

For what it's worth, northern anglers do sometimes dominate tournaments on northern waters (and southern waters). It's not my desire to argue North vs. South or East vs. West. I just found it interesting how dominant Alabama and Texas pros were among top finishers in this particular event, and it seemed like a good time to note that the best Elite Series anglers have the capacity to find bass and catch them anywhere in the country.

Detroit Decisions

All eyes will be on Joe Balog, a Great Lakes expert who lives by Lake St. Clair, when Balog brings his fish to the B.A.S.S. Open scales on Thursday.





You can bet there's a lot of noodling happening now on the waters closest to Detroit. Pros are currently practicing for a B.A.S.S Open that begins on Thursday. Any bass tournament out of the Motor City begins with the basic decision about whether to fish St. Clair, massive Lake Erie or the Detroit River, which connects the two waterways -- a decision impacted by where pros get the most bites and catch the biggest fish during practice and by the weather outlook.

Anglers who are unfamiliar with these waters must first find stuff they like and then decide what strategies make the most sense. However, decisions aren't necessarily easy for the pros who know these waters best because an angler's two best areas might be 75 miles from each other. Weather is a factor in any bass tournament because it affects fish behavior, but the forecast has an extra big impact on Great Lakes fisheries because it dictates where a pro can and cannot run or fish effectively and the practicality of moving from one spot to another during a day.

Big-water specialists like Joe Balog, who won a 2006 Northern Open on Erie and who now calls the St. Clair area home, enjoy advantages that stretch way beyond knowing how the fish behave and where they go on these waters (although that knowledge is important, too). They know how to run big water and how to set up over offshore structure and fish it effectively, even when the lake is rocking.

I haven't looked at the 5-day forecast for Detroit, but in truth what it says now about Thursday may have little to do with what actually happens. The pros may have have to take one final peek up a flagpole on Thursday morning and then decide which way to point the boat!