FLW Tour Open Detroit River Baits, Gear & Patterns

The big flat out in the middle of Lake St. Clair that Larry Nixon and several other top finishers fished during last week's Detroit River FLW Tour Open held a seemingly infinite number of quality smallmouths. That was a good thing for Nixon because if they'd run out, he had nowhere else to go. "What it boiled down to after practice was I really had nothing else to fish except that one area," he said. It turned out that was all he needed, as he mined it for an average of better than 21 pounds a day en route to his 18th professional victory and first since 2007. His 84-11 total for 4 days eclipsed runner-up Bill McDonald by just over 6 pounds. Nixon discovered the big flat Ð which is at least 8 miles from the nearest piece of land Ð prior to the Detroit event in 2007. It didn't surrender much to him that year, as he finished 94th, and it was even less helpful the following year, when he ended up 140th. He hadn't seen it in the past 4 years, but this time he found it in a much more giving mood. "Even though I'd never done well there in a tournament, it's an area I like to fish," he said. "I'd caught big ones in there on a dropshot before, although never of that magnitude, and I'd seen some nasty schooling fish there a couple of times.

"This time I caught a (5-pounder) the first day I was there and it had a 4 following it, and the boy I was practicing with caught a good one. I saw that there were a lot of fish in the general vicinity, and every time another tournament boat would come into sight while I was drifting around, I'd leave." The flat was about a quarter-mile square and most of the water was in the 15-foot depth range. It was inundated by a species of baitfish that he couldn't readily identify. "I don't know what that minnow was, but it was about 2 inches long and there were huge schools of them. You'd see them jumping out of the water when you were reeling up your bait and it got near the surface. "Usually on St. Clair you find perch or rock bass on the bottom. There were no perch in this area Ð only smallmouth and whatever that minnow was." He didn't know how things would turn out, but he knew he'd live or die on that one flat. "The only way to fish a place like that is to grit your teeth, put the trolling motor down and go with the wind until you hit fish. You have to make several drifts to find the sweet spots. Sometimes they pan out and sometimes they don't."

Competition:

The big fish didn't cooperate for Nixon on day 1 as he got just a single bite that exceeded the 4-pound class, and that one jumped off. His near-18-pound stringer represented a decent start, but it left him trailing 36 other competitors. The bruisers showed him a lot more love on day 2, when he boxed almost 23 pounds and gained 30 places in the standings. He had 20 pounds in the first hour and upgraded several times throughout the remainder of the day. His day-3 bag was even bigger and it pushed him to the top of the leaderboard. It didn't come together nearly as easily, though, as all he could catch in the early morning were fish that weighed 2 pounds or less. He stayed with the program, though, and the 4-pounders (and even a 5) eventually showed up. The sack gave him a 5-ounce lead over McDonald, who was fishing close by, with 1 day to go. He got one exceptional bite on the final day from a fish that was at or very near 6 pounds. That stout specimen, along with a quartet of 3 1/2 pounders, proved to be more than enough to keep the rest of the Top-10 field at bay.

Winning Pattern:

Nixon caught the vast majority of his weigh-in fish on a dropshot rig tipped with a Berkley Gulp! Alive! Jerk Shad. He substituted other baits, including a Berkley Gulp! Goby, at times when the action died down. He picked up a few good ones on a Berkley Havoc Sick Fish swimbait. "The fish could be anywhere inside that (quarter-mile square)," he said. "There were five to seven really clean spots on the bottom, some of them maybe 30 yards long, where you could really do your damage. When they were biting, it wasn't real complicated to get bit. I was casting (the dropshot rig) and fishing it back to the boat like a Carolina-rig, and if I'd feel any grass on the sinker, I'd pop it and drag it a little more. "Smallmouth will bite just about anything, but one of the key things that helped me more than anything was the size of that (Jerk Shad). I could pick up a tube and catch lots of fish, but I couldn't catch the 4- and 5-pounders. That bait works good on the bottom for the bigger fish. "Those fish were sitting right on the bottom," he continued, "and they wouldn't come up for anything unless you had the perfect of amount of breeze Ð not totally calm, but not windy. If it was just perfect, you could get a big one to eat that swimbait, but the rest of the time they were locked down on the bottom." With conditions being what they were (extremely mild for this time of year), he had no real concerns about the fish totally vacating the area. "They won't move out unless the bait totally leaves or the fishing pressure gets really bad. Then they may go in any of four directions, but they might only go half a mile and sit on the next sand spot they find. "But if the water stains up, you can forget it."

Winning Gear:

Dropshot gear: 6'10" medium-action Abu Garcia Villain rod, Abu Garcia Revo SX casting reel (7.1:1 ratio), 10-pound Spiderwire Ultracast Ultimate braided line (main line), 10-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon (10' leader), 1/4- or 3/8-ounce unnamed dropshot weight, 1/0 Gamakatsu dropshot hook, 5" Berkley Gulp! Alive! Jerk Shad (chartreuse/pepper neon) or Berkley Gulp! Goby (green-pumpkin/copper).

Swimbait gear: 7'1" medium-action Abu Garcia Villain rod, Abu Garcia Revo MGX casting reel (7.9:1 ratio), 14-pound Berkley Trilene XT monofilament line, 1/2-ounce Yamamoto swimbait jighead, Berkley Havoc Sick Fish swimbait (Arkansas shiner).

Main factor: "The main thing would be knowing there were a lot of fish in that area."

Performance edge: "Definitely the Lowrance GPS. I couldn't have caught anything without that."

Indiana pro Bill McDonald fished the same flat in the middle of Lake St. Clair that Nixon exploited, and it resulted in his best-ever finish at the tour level. He used a drophot rig exclusively, with a Poor Boys Baits Erie Darter attached to the business end. The flat was located not far from a popular St. Clair locale known as the Belle River Hump. "I found the place on the first day of practice - I pulled up and caught two 5-pounders, and then I left," he said. "I came back one other time and caught a 4. There was a ton of baitfish in that area, along with some scattered grass and a little bit of rock, and the fish would be on the clean spots. "All the fish were between 14 and 15 feet deep. I'm a flipper, and anything over 4 feet deep, I kind of feel like I'm out of my element. I just kept a tight line on the dropshot and the better fish I never felt - they'd just load up like the line was on some grass. The smaller ones, I'd feel them peck at it."

Dropshot gear: 7'4" medium-heavy Dobyns Champion Extreme rod, Daiwa spinning reel, 10-pound Berkley FireLine braid (main line), 8-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon leader (12 to 14 feet), 1/4- or 3/8-ounce Strike King tungsten weight, 1/0 Gamakatsu splitshot/dropshot hook, Poor Boys Baits Erie Darter (smoke/purple).

Main factor : "Just staying persistent in that area instead of jumping the gun and taking off running. I believe that you don't leave fish to find fish."

Performance edge: "Definitely my Garmin GPS and depthfinder. There's no way I could've even found that spot without GPS."

Tour-level neophyte Chad Pipkens of Michigan, this year's Bassmaster Northern Opens points champion, was the only Top-5 finisher who spent his days on Lake Erie. He plied the big lake's north shore and lost some quality bites each day, but put enough big bronzebacks in the boat to stay near the top of the leaderboard throughout the event. "The only day that was different was the first day," he said. "I had over 20 pounds at 9 o'clock and I caught a bunch after that. "The fish were in mostly 18 to 22 feet (of water) and they weren't right on the structure. They were off to the side in little patches of gravel." He caught one good fish on a Lucky Craft crankbait on day 1, but a dropshot setup accounted for all the rest.

Dropshot gear: 7' light-action Powell spinning rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier spinning reel, 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon line, unnamed 3/8- or 1/2-ounce round dropshot weight, 1/0 Gamakatsu splitshot/dropshot hook, Poor Boys Baits Erie Darter (smoke/purple).

Main factor: "I didn't wait for any fish - I moved around a lot. I hit some places two or three times a day."

Performance edge: "My Ranger boat for getting me out there and back. Also, a 52-inch trolling-motor shaft makes a difference for staying in the right position under the conditions we had."

Spencer Shuffield was consistent as all get-out for the first 3 days as he compiled a 21-pound average. His weight fell of dramatically in the strong wind that showed up for day 4, but it cost him only one slot in the standings. He fished near the big flat where Nixon, McDonald and 5th-place finisher Shinichi Fukae were, but had his own deal going off to the side. He worked scattered clumps of eel grass in the 15-foot range. "I'd been fishing a couple of little areas (in practice) and I was running pretty slow, and I started seeing all these little clumps through my Typhoon sunglasses," he said. "I was fortunate enough to find just that one real good spot, and it held up for me. There was about 115 pounds of bass caught off that one spot (between him and his co-anglers)." He caught one quality fish on a dropshot rig, but the rest were enticed by a tube.

Tube gear: 7'2" medium-heavy Shimano Cumara spinning rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier spinning reel, 10-pound Spiderwire Ultracast Ultimate braided line, 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon leader (12 feet), 3/8-ounce unnamed jighead, Crunchers tube (green-pumpkin/purple flake) or Strike King Coffee Tube (natural goby).

Dropshot gear: Same rod, reel and line as tube, 1/4-ounce Mojo Pineapple weight, 1/0 Gamakatsu splitshot/dropshot hook, Berkley Gulp! Goby (natural goby).

Main factor: "Staying in that same area."

Performance edge: "My Evinrude E-Tec. Running 40 miles there and 40 back, there's no doubt it was the deal. It's gotten me to a lot of places this year."

Shinichi Fukae was the third member of the high-finishing trio who worked the quarter-mile flat on St. Clair. He made a mistake, however, by not going there immediately on day 1, when he ended up with what was easily his lightest bag. "I found two good areas in practice," he said, with wife Miyu translating. "One was a quality (bigger-fish) area and the other was a numbers area. I was in the early flight on day 1 and that meant my fishing time was shortened, so I decided to get a solid limit quickly at the numbers area and then go to the quality area to cull. "When I went to the quality area, I was kind of shocked because (Nixon) was on the exact same spot. We shared the area all week and my hat's off to him." He caught most of his fish on a tube, but picked up a few on a dropshot rig.

Tube gear: 7' medium-action Megabass Orochi rod, Shimano Vanquish spinning reel, 14-pound YGK Yoz-Ami sinking braided line (main line), 8-pound YGK Yoz-Ami fluorocarbon leader, 3/8- or 5/16-ounce Bite Me Tackle jighead, unnamed tube (smoke/blue flake).

Dropshot gear: 6'10" medium-light Megabass Orochi rod, same reel and line, unnamed 3/8-ounce dropshot weight, size 1 Gamakatsu Swivelshot hook, Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm (green-pumpkin).

Main factor:"Deciding to go to Lake St. Clair, because I practiced at Erie, too."

Performance edge: "I had good co-anglers. That's a mental thing. They beat me on the first day and the second day. If I get a co-angler who can't fish, that mental edge goes away."

Detroit River Winning Pattern Bassfan 8/28/12 (John Johnson)

Detroit River Patterns 2-5 Bassfan 8/31/12 (John Johnson)