In a tournament that saw big largemouth bags lift anglers to the top of the leaderboard, it was the anglers who specifically targeted spotted bass who largely dominated the spotlight on the final day of the St. Croix Bassmaster Southern Open at Lake Hartwell presented by Mossy Oak Fishing.
Tristan McCormick and Bryant Smith put on a forward-facing show on Championship Saturday as McCormick took the victory with 45 pounds even with all spotted bass and Smith landed the biggest bag of Day 3 with 15-9 of spots.
Paul Marks, John Garrett, Lucas Murphy and Matt Pangrac also showed just how exciting and productive chasing spots can be, with chasing being the key word.
Many of the spotted bass these anglers caught all week were roaming in wolf packs and not relating to anything. McCormick in particular was looking for smaller groups of bass, which seemed to hold better quality, but he had to be perfect with his casting accuracy or he would have no shot.
“You have the trolling motor at 100 and when you see one, you have one perfect cast because you are going super fast and they will be under the boat before you know it,” McCormick said. “I got really dialed in on my distance.”
“I didn’t want any more than five bass in a group, just because there is so much going on,” he added. “When you would throw a drop shot in a school of 20 of them, they would just sit there. They wouldn’t move. When you throw between two or three, it was like a fight over it. It makes zero sense but you could watch it happen (on my graph).”
The first two days brought mostly sunny and calm conditions, but the final day was partly cloudy with a little wind and chop on the water, which scattered the spotted bass that were relating to brush and cane piles.
Smith had been catching bass out of structure the first two days, but that changed Saturday.
“With the cloud cover, they weren’t holding so close to the brush like they have been,” he explained. “They were roaming around a little more so I did a lot more looking instead of hitting brush piles, making two casts and pulling up the trolling motor.”
Garrett noticed the spots in his area of the main lake were more active on the final day as well.
“I call them green smallmouth because they act like smallmouth do,” Garrett said. “One day they bite, one they don’t. Today they were a lot more active and up feeding around in big packs. The days they have been biting, we have had some north winds and we got a little bit of that today.
Lehtonen, Lineberger, Bryan New and David Gaston used all largemouth to carry them into the final day, but on Championship Sunday the big green fish did not cooperate nearly as well. Lineberger did land a 6-8 largemouth on a buzzbait early in the morning to anchor a 13-15 bag while New landed 13-12, but fell way short of his 19-0 Day performance.
All week, Lehtonen had mentioned that falling water on an already low Lake Hartwell has the largemouth moving out of his areas instead of into them like they normally do in the fall. Falling water was also an issue for Lineberger, but he also said the warm afternoons have the fish a little confused.
The combination of conditions moved the largemouth away from the areas Lineberger used to catch 17-13 on Day 1 and he never was able to relocate them on a consistent basis.
“I knew it was kind of going away,” he said on LIVE. “The warming up of the water from the warm days has a lot to do with them being on the move. They were starting to transition to where they wanted to be (in practice).”
Bait activity was also different. Throughout the week, Lineberger saw plenty of bream around the docks in his primary area, but on the final day he didn’t see nearly as many.
Lehtonen’s largemouth areas began to fire in the last hour and a half, but it just happened a little too late in the day to recover from a tough start.
McCormick Makes Second Straight Classic Appearance
On the same lake he fished his first Bassmaster Classic just this year, McCormick punched his ticket to the Classic for the second straight season with the victory Saturday. Next year, McCormick will be fishing in his home state for the 2023 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic at Knoxville March 24-26.
McCormick is extremely familiar with Tennessee River fishing and has been to Loudoun and Tellico Lakes several times. With one Classic under his belt, he will be more prepared for the curveballs that event throws at anglers.
The Bethel University grad is becoming a fan favorite around the Bassmaster tournament trails. Once he lifted the trophy on stage, he was asked to sign autographs with several youngsters watching in the crowd and took numerous pictures with fans and fellow competitors. It’s an overwhelming feeling, but McCormick enjoys it and hopes he leaves a positive vibe from every interaction.
“The younger generation following my career means the world to me,” he said. “I love catching fish but I want to make an impression on this world and I want to do that more than anything.These days don’t happen every day and it is so hard to win one of these. It is a blessing.”
An Ode to the Buzzbait
I could watch the replay of Lineberger catching that 6-8 largemouth all day long. The True South Custom Buzzbait frame he was using in this event is having a moment in the sun, as Louis Monetti also used it to win the College Classic Bracket a week earlier at Lake Greenwood, located a couple hours from Anderson. A double bladed buzzbait doesn’t make it to camera very often, and whatever secrets it may hold may be further exposed in more tournaments soon.
Points Race Set for Wild Ending
The final Southern Open has created quite an interesting situation in the Overall Angler of the Year race. Keith Poche leads the overall standings followed by David Gaston and Cooper Gallant in third place.
Here’s where things get interesting. Poche and Gallant are already Elite Series qualified after qualifying through a specific division, Poche via the Northern Opens and Gallant via the Southerns with a solid finish at Hartwell.
With a good finish at the final event at Sam Rayburn Oct. 20-22, Gaston will also punch a ticket for the Elite Series through the Central division.
This opens a wide variety of scenarios for anglers who are in contention for the three berths into the Elite Series through the Overall standings. Cole Sands in fourth, Logan Parks in fifth and John Soukup in sixth would qualify if everything remained constant through the final event, but a really good finish at Rayburn for Sands could lift him into the Top 3 in the Centrals as well, creating another Overalls drop down.
There are a ton of different scenarios and it will all come down to who catches them and who doesn’t. At Big Sam, it is anybody’s ballgame.
