After the first six Bassmaster Opens of 2023, Canadian Jamie Bruce has worked his way up the Bassmaster Opens Elite Qualifier ladder to eighth place. Despite his success, Bruce admits he has much to learn about largemouth bass.
It wasn’t until his third Bassmaster Open that he caught a largemouth in the United States while competing.
In April of 2022 Bruce fished his first Open tournament at Tennessee’s Cherokee Lake and nabbed third place exclusively with smallmouth bass. Later that year at his second Open tournament, he finished 19th on South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell by sacking only spotted bass.
He boated his first largemouth on the first day of the Elite Qualifier of 2023 on Lake Eufaula in Alabama. He finished 104th in that event, which is, by far, his worst showing of the season.
Bruce excels at fishing offshore with heavy reliance on forward-facing sonar. He refined this skill while competing in Canadian tournaments for walleye and smallmouth bass.
While practicing for the Eufaula Open, he employed his electronics to locate brushpiles and other offshore targets he intended to fish during the tournament. That plan vaporized when his forward-facing sonar crashed.
“It’s hard to fish offshore without forward-facing sonar,” Bruce said. “I resorted to flipping and swimming a worm in shallow water.”
Bruce has done much better with largemouth in subsequent Opens events, but mainly while fishing offshore. He has been learning how to on the job.
Growing up, Bruce became enamored with fishing at Longbow Lake, Ontario, where his parents had a cabin.
As a tad, Bruce caught perch and rock bass while his mother, Mary, paddled him about in a tiny fiberglass boat.
“I got onto the finesse game really early,” Bruce said. “Everyone used jigs. I learned that I could catch more fish with crawlers on a split-shot rig.”
At age 7 Bruce was allowed to fish alone from a 12-foot aluminum V hull powered by a 5.5 hp outboard. The motor had to be started in gear, which resulted in Bruce being dumped overboard a number of times.
In high school he bought a 14-foot aluminum V hull sporting a 15 hp Honda outboard with money he made from a roofing job. By this time he was heavily into walleye and smallmouth bass.
At age 17 he guided for walleye, pike and smallmouth at Delaney Lake Lodge, a remote fly-in camp 100 miles north of the nearest roads in Ontario. The lodge’s boats were 17-foot Lunds with 50 hp outboards.
After getting a degree in law enforcement, Bruce became an intelligence officer for the province of Ontario. Around this time he also started guiding for walleye and smallmouth bass on Lake of the Woods.
Intrigued by the many walleye and bass tournaments that were taking place on Lake of the Woods, he bought his first bass boat in 2008.
The 17-foot, 1996 Champion was his first boat equipped with a bow trolling motor. He began competing in major tournaments with large fields and top-notch anglers, including Canadian Bassmaster Elite Series standout Jeff Gustafson.
When Bruce stopped for gas after practicing for a walleye tournament, he noticed water pouring out of the boat’s bottom. The Champion’s hull had split.
Not one to be deterred, he bought fiberglass mat and resin from a local hardware store. Then he and his tournament partner crawled under the boat and worked until midnight to patch the hull. They fished the tournament out of the boat the next two days and finished in 10th place.
Bruce bought his first full-fledged tournament boat in 2013. It was one a Lund sporting a 225 hp outboard Gustafson had competed in for a year.
Bruce; his wife, Ashley; and Norman, their black lab, reside in Kenora, Ontario, which overlooks Lake of the Woods. Bruce refers to this body of water as “The Gem.”
“I look at the lake every day when I wake up,” he said. “Its fishing is diverse enough that I never get bored with it. It has most of what I need to learn how to compete.”
When the lake is frozen over, which it is six months of the year, Bruce fishes through holes in the ice. He employs the same forward-facing sonar he relies on when fishing open water. He claims that ice fishing has helped him develop a “keen eye” for interpreting what he sees on the display.
To come up with funds for the EQs, Bruce has been posting YouTube videos and engaging in other social media platforms. He is also a partner with Bryan Gustafson in Bass Tactics Lure Manufacturing. Among other lures, the company makes the Smeltinator Jig that Jeff Gustafson used to win the 2023 Bassmaster Classic on the Tennessee River.
“I haven’t set the bar very high for myself this year,” Bruce said. “The Elite Qualifiers are super competitive. I never thought I’d have a chance to be in this position. If I get a few lucky breaks, I would love to fish the Elite Series.”
Bruce’s title sponsor is 13 Fishing. His other sponsors include VMC, Suffix, Strike Master Ice Augers, Z-Man Fishing, Nordic Point Lodge, Dryden Trailblazers Tourism, Lund, Simms, Lake of the Woods Sports Headquarters, Bass Tactics Lure Manufacturing, WSL Sports and Leisure, Lake of the Woods Mobile Marine and Crawford’s Camp.
