Chad Grigsby Wins FLW Lake St. Clair

Chad Grisgsby's professional fishing career bottomed out last year on the Bassmaster Elite Series and his return to the FLW Tour this year didn't start out any better. Matters improved greatly as the campaign wore on, though, and culminated last week with his victory in the regular-season finale at Lake St. Clair in Michigan.

Competing in the state where he resided for the first 32 years of his life, the 46-year-old Grigsby, now a Minnesota resident, notched his second career triumph in Tour competition - the first came in 2011 at Kentucky Lake. He pillaged an area on St. Clair's famed South Shore to the tune of 97-08 over 4 days, which was far more weight than even the most clued-in local experts anticipated it would take to collect the trophy and the six-figure paycheck. For an all-smallmouth derby, the numbers bordered on the ridiculous. For Grigsby, who concluded 2017 with four consecutive triple-digit finishes on the Elite Series and notched a 162nd in this year's FLW Tour opener at Lake Okeechobee, it was the highlight of a career-revival season. As an added bonus, the performance gained him a berth in next month's Forrest Wood Cup.

"I'm back where I need to be," he said. "I'm just so relaxed and comfortable now. "(His time with) B.A.S.S. was a train wreck. I was always more nervous that I wouldn't catch a fish than I was excited about going out and trying to catch one, and that's not the way you want to be." Following are some of the specifics of his St. Clair smallmouth smack-down.

Practice:

Grigsby has fished about two dozen tournaments at St. Clair and has traditionally favored the Canadian side of the lake. "I've always been a fan of the South Shore, so I wanted to concentrate on that," he said. "I still went to some other places, like Mitchell's Bay, and I found some other stuff, but it wasn't the same quality. "As soon as I caught a couple on the South Shore, I knew that's what I was looking for."

He went in thinking that 14 to 17 feet would be the key depth range, but discovered that more post-spawners were holding at approximately 19 feet. Because of the lake's relative flatness, those ranges are usually far apart in actual distance. He used his Garmin electronics to find sparse patches of vegetation that he termed "cabbage." It was only found in small clumps and usually had sandy spots around it. The area where he wound up spending the entire tournament was about 2 miles from the Belle River Hump. "I didn't realize how special it was until the first day of the tournament," he said.

Competition:

Grigsby led day 1 with a 25-13 sack - a day that saw 32 bags of 20 pounds or more come to the scale (that total would actually increase by three the following day). He caught all of his weight early, picking up a couple of 4-pounders on a tube and then employing a spybait to haul in a trio of 5-pound-plus specimens in quick succession. Day 2 was almost as good and he hit the halfway point with just over 50 pounds on his ledger. Day 3 was a bit slower, however, and he attributed that to the wind - the spybait was ultra-effective with just a slight ripple on the water's surface, but wouldn't get touched in any thpe of significant chop.

He went into the final day trailing Dylan Hays by 15 ounces. Feeling like he'd mined most of the quality from his area, he opted to move a few hundred yards toward shore, where he'd seen some big bronzebacks busting mayflies on day 2. He quickly caught two big ones on the tube, and then put it down and picked up the spybait. The wind had slowed down considerably and he recognized that conditions were ideal for that offering. He proceeded to wail upon one big, brown fish after another for the next 45 minutes. When it was over, he had a sack that was about half a pound bigger than the one he'd caught on opening day.

"The scale in my boat had me at 26-06 and it had been just a little heavy all week," he said. "I was doing the math in my head while I was driving and I knew if Dylan caught another 26 like he did (on day 2), he'd beat me by a pound, but I'd done all I could do. "I left at 2 o'clock because it was getting rough and I didn't want to kill any of my fish on the way in. What good was it to keep fishing trying to gain 4 ounces if I was going to lose 8 (the penalty for two dead ones) when I got back in. If he caught 26 again, he deserved to beat me." Hays scaled 23-02, leaving Grigsby's winning margin at 2-03.

Winning Pattern:

Whether he was fishing the tube (a smallmouth staple in the Great Lakes region) or the spybait, Grigsby made extremely long casts. His throws were not directed at specific targets, as the vegetation clumps were scattered all over the bottom in every direction. The spybait was a big-fish killer, but he believes the primary reason it didn't work in roiled water is because his quarry couldn't detect it.

"I'm not sure about this - I asked one of them that I caught, but he wouldn't give me an answer," he cracked. "It's a small-profile bait and I just think they couldn't see it looking up when the water got choppy. When the sun's shining through the whole water column, the bait becomes really flashy." Trying to fish it anywhere near his boat was fruitless. "If I got it even halfway back, I wouldn't get a bite."

Winning Gear:

Tube gear: 7'6" medium-heavy St. Croix Legend Elite rod, Lew's Tournament Pro Speed Spool casting reel (8.3:1 ratio), 10-pound unnamed braided line (main line), 10-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon leader, 3/4-ounce Venom Lures jighead, 4" Venom Lures tube (green-pumpkin/gold).

Spybait gear: 7'6" medium-light St. Croix Legend Extreme rod, Lew's Mach Crush Speed Spin 3000 reel, 10-pound unnamed braided line (main line), 8-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon leader, Duo Realis Spinbait 80 Spybait (various colors).

He also caught two weigh-in fish on a hair jig.

Main factor: "It was all about the weather and making adjustments, like (on day 4) when I caught a 5 and a 4 1/2 and then put the tube down. I could see what was happing and I knew I'd better make hay when I could."

Performance edge: "The two biggest things were the Garmin electronics, because that's how I found the stuff I was fishing, and the medium-light St. Croix rod. People complain about losing a lot of fish on spybaits, but that rod has the perfect tip for fighting them and for throwing the bait a long ways. I missed some, but I didn't lose any that I had hooked up."

FLW Tour Lake St. Clair Winning Pattern BassFan 7/5/18 (John Johnson)

Hays, a second-year pro from Arkansas, finished the season with a flourish - he'd place 14th in the previous derby at Kentucky Lake. He ended up at No. 45 on the points list, just one place shy of qualifying for the Forrest Wood Cup, due to 160th- and 142nd-place stinkers at Smith Lake and Lake Cumberland prior to Kentucky. He caught the biggest stringer of the tournament on day 2 and entered the final day with the lead, but came up a little more than 2 pounds short of victory as Grigsby posted a 26 1/4-pound bag.

He shared a locale near the South Shore (within shouting distance of where Grigsby fished) with 3rd-place finisher Brad Knight. The place wasn't really structure- or cover-oriented, but was teeming with perch that the smallmouth were feasting upon in 17 to 18 feet of water. "It was windy in practice and on that one little stretch I made six stops," he said. "I'd catch a 4-pounder and then move about a quarter-mile and do it again. That area was full of 5-, 4- and 3-pounders and they were all really fat." A Ned rig was his primary weapon. "Really long casts were definitely better when it was calmer, but it was also easier to lose fish that way," he said.

Gear:

Ned rig gear: 7' medium-heavy Falcon Cara rod, Shimano Stradic Ci4+ 2500 spinning reel, 10-pound Hi-Seas braided line (main line), 8-pound Hi-Seas fluorocarbon (leader), 3/16-ounce Mustad Grip-Pin Ned jighead, Z-Man Finesse TRD (green-pumpkin).

He caught two weigh-in fish on a dropshot rig featuring a 6-inch Roboworm (Aaron's magic) on day 1.

Main factor: "Finding an area and calling it home. I knew there were lots of good fish around and I stuck with it."

Performance edge: "The Minn Kota trolling motor with Spot-Lock, the Power-Pole Drift Paddles for slowing down in the wind and the Lowrance graph. I used different colors on the graph for my trails each day so I'd know where I'd been and where I hadn't been and it made the waypoints real easy to manage."

FLW Tour St. Clair Patterns 2-5 BassFan 7/6/18 (John Johnson)

Knight, the 2015 Forrest Wood Cup winner, had by far his best finish of a tough season Ð his previous high this year was a 42nd. It was his maiden trip to St. Clair and he's naturally already looking forward to returning. He found the spot he divvied up with Hays (located about 20 miles from the take-off) in practice, but didn't realize its potential until competition got under way.

"I found a big concentration of fish on the first day of the tournament and for the first 2 days I didn't fish there later than 10 o'clock," he said. "(On day 3) I stepped it up a little bit more and started expanding and learning more about the place. "I knew it had good ones and the more I fished, the more I learned about it and where the little sweet spots were. Dylan and I worked really well together and my hat's off to him. He had his little places and I had mine and we'd chat throughout the day and compare weights and try to leave at the same time to make sure we got back (for check-in). It was very affable and there were no problems whatsoever." His weigh-in fish were split about evenly between a dropshot rig and a tube.

Gear:

Dropshot gear: 7' medium-fast Lew's Custom Speed Stick Magnum spinning rod, Team Lew's Pro Speed Spin 300 spinning reel, 10-pound Gamma Torque braid (main line), 6-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon (15' leader) 1/0 Gamakatsu Split Shot/Drop Shot hook, unnamed goby imitation (perch) or Strke King Z Too (Arkansas shiner), 3/8-ounce Strike King Tour Grade tungsten weight.

Tube gear: 7'2" medium-heavy Lew's Custom Speed Stick Magnum Tube rod, same reel and line, 5/16-ounce Strike King Tour Grade tube jighead, 3 1/2" Strike King Coffee Tube (green-pumpkin/purple or copper flake).

Main factor in his success Ð "My objective in going there for the first time was to keep things simple. I did a lot of fishing in practice for the purpose of catching fish and marking concentrations of fish instead of places where it seemed like I was getting bites randomly."

FLW Tour St. Clair Patterns 2-5 BassFan 7/6/18 (John Johnson)

Thrift began the tournament employing his usual frenetic style, bouncing from one place to another, but ended up doing the majority of his work during the latter part of the tournament along a 200-yard grassy stretch on the Canadian side of the lake. He had it all to himself. "The first 2 days I ran everywhere that I got a bite in practice," he said. "After that I realized where my best potential was and I made myself stay there until I caught them every day.

"I was trying to make long casts to get the bait as far away from the boat as I could. There was one place where I was catching them pretty shallow and they were real spooky, so I downsized my bait a little bit." About 75 percent of his weigh-in fish were enticed by a Damiki Stinger fished on a standard jighead. For his more subtle approach, he went with a Damiki Pen 2 worm on a dropshot rig. Most of the fish were holding in 16 to 18 feet of water.

Gear:

Worm gear: 6'9" medium-action Fitzgerald Stunner rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier 30 spinning reel, 20-pound P-Line TCBX braided line (main line), 8-pound P-Line Tactical fluorocarbon leader, 1/8- or 1/4-ounce jighead, 4" Damiki Stinger (green-pumpkin or baby bass).

Dropshot gear: 6'10" medium-heavy Fitzgerald Versa rod, same reel and line, 1/0 Berkley Fusion dropshot hook, Damiki Pen 2 worm (green-pumpkin), 3/8-ounce round dropshot weight.

Main factor: "Making myself stay put instead of running all over the place."

Performance edge: "The combination of the rod, reel and line. It gave me the confidence to catch those big fish on light line without having to worry about them breaking off."

FLW Tour St. Clair Patterns 2-5 BassFan 7/6/18 (John Johnson)

It would've been a big surprise if Dobson hadn't ended up among the top 5, as the resident of Clarkston, Mich. is arguably the top tournament angler on St. Clair. But even he didn't anticipate the quality that the three anglers who finished in front of him would uncover from some of the deeper haunts along the South Shore. He focused his entire practice within 5 miles of the mouth of the St. Clair River.

"I took the place where the middle channel dumps out and where the north channel dumps out and drew a circle around it," he said. "The post-spawn fish move into the current where the water's a little cooler. They're in predictable places and I like casting to targets. "I fished divots, seams and breaks in the current and a log here or a boulder there." Most of the fish were sitting in the 10-foot depth range or shallower. He caught them with a combination of a jerkbait, a dropshot rig, a tube, a swimbait and a crankbait. "These weights were the best I've ever seen in an event here," he said. "They were just insane!"

Gear:

Jerkbait gear: 6'8" medium-action Dobyns 684 CB rod, Shimano Metanium MGL (7.5:1 ratio) or Shimano Core (7:1) casting reel, unnamed 12- or 14-pound fluorocarbon line, Lucky Craft Pointer 100 (chartreuse shad) or Megabass Vision 110 + 1 (pearl/chartreuse).

Dropshot gear: 7' medium action Dobyns 703 spinning rod, Shimano Stradic Ci4+ spinning reel, 10-pound PowerPro Maxcuatro braided line (main line), 10-pound unnamed fluorocarbon leader, 1/0 Gamakatsu Split Shot/Drop Shot hook, discontinued Jackall Eye Shad (pearl), 3/8-ounce Provider Tackle cylindrical weight.

Swimbait gear: 7'3" medium-heavy Dobyns 734 rod, Shimano Core casting reel (7:1 ratio), unnamed 12-pound fluorocarbon line, 3/8-ounce ball-head jig, Keitech 3.8 or 3.3 (sexy shad).

The tube he used was a Provider Tackle model (green-pumpkin with copper and gold).

The lone crankbait fish he weighed was enticed by a deep-running Duo Realis 100 (twilight).

Main factor: "My plan was to catch 22 to 23 pounds every day. The only thing that hurt me was the amount of fish already out (on the main lake) and a handful of guys finding mega-schools of them."

Performance edge: "I used my Power-Poles and the Spot-Lock on my Minn Kota trolling motor a lot every day."

FLW Tour St. Clair Patterns 2-5 BassFan 7/6/18 (John Johnson)