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[djkimmel]

...the Bassmaster Elite Series will be won on Lake St. Clair.

What do you think? Am I crazy?

[Team houston]

If that doesn't include the channels, then yes

[djkimmel]

I wasn't thinking of being real specific but I would say I meant anything North of the Detroit River, but not Lake Huron. Someone started some talk that one high placed person is fishing there but I have no idea if it is true. Yet.

[djkimmel]

Bassmaster reported that day one leader Chris Lane fished Lake St. Clair, but a couple sources do say he caught some bass in Lake Huron. If I can find out that he caught his bass more than 1 mile from the start of the St. Clair River, I wouldn't count those as St. Clair bass* but we may have to wait until Sunday afternoon for that determination (how much of his weight success is Lake Huron verses Lake St. Clair / St. Clair River).

* I've always felt that some smallmouth bass migrate quite a ways through the system and beyond while some bass are homebodies that stay in Lake St. Clair or maybe just the lower channels. I've suspected, along with other more knowledgeable anglers on that system that at least a Lake St. Clair into St. Clair River movement back-and-forth, and Lake Huron - upper St. Clair River movement back-and-forth of smallmouth bass exists. So it might be hard to ever distinguish a smallmouth bass as truly a full-time Lake Erie, Lake St. Clair or Lake Huron resident bass, but that doesn't have to affect the call for this tournament. We can just go by where the bass was caught when it was put in the livewell to weigh in.

[djkimmel]

If that doesn't include the channels, then yes

BTW - Thanks for calling me crazy.

[Team houston]

Reread the transcript. I did not call you crazy. I just agreed with you if you think it would be won on St.Clair. lol

[MSURoss]

I'm pretty sure Chris Lane got his fish in St. Clair

[tim4081]

Looks like today Lane is fishing Huron and doing well.  Evers looked like he was out of it but made a long run and now has a limit.

[djkimmel]

Reread the transcript. I did not call you crazy. I just agreed with you if you think it would be won on St.Clair. lol

It's okay to call me crazy. I guess maybe we are now BOTH crazy!! Hardly anyone seems to think it can be won on Lake St. Clair.

[djkimmel]

I'm pretty sure Chris Lane got his fish in St. Clair

The Bassmaster.com news article only mentioned way out in St. Clair but others are reporting he was in Lake Huron part of the day and caught some - maybe his bigger bass? - there. I see GreatLakesBass.com member Ed Dyer is with him today and took a picture of a monster smallmouth bass that Bassmaster.com writer Mark Hicks is reporting was caught out in Lake Huron.

It may be that Chris Lane is catching a few big bass in Lake Huron and then adding keepers or trying to cull or find backup spots in Lake St. Clair. Maybe I will find out this evening or tomorrow while I'm there.

[Manxfishing]

Just saw Marten is making the run to Erie every day
And he's in 2nd as of now

Plus the guy has the B-date as me so I'm pulling for him
Go Aaron, Go Erie
 

[motocross269]

I talked to his brother today and Chris has been on lake Huron. I did see him fishing on LSC on the way back in late in the afternoon.

[djkimmel]

Basstrack showed him fishing Lake Huron much of the day near the St. Clair River mouth though far enough out to say he was in Lake Huron. But Mark Davis is leading for the 2nd day in a row and everyone says he is in Lake Erie.

Lots of people are saying the weight isn't in Lake St. Clair right now. But... having seen where most of the fishing by these anglers is occurring I'm not as surprised they aren't putting together bigger limits.

Lake St. Clair was fishing completely different before their cutoff date so the pros were really thrown when they came back with only 2 1/2 days of practice to find everything had changed. They couldn't get information so they had no warning and some of them feel they did not have enough time to figure out where the bass moved, especially throwing in how many dropped their plans to practice on Erie too.

That moved worked for some, and messed up others even more. I was told that the MDNR did take a sampling of bass brought in to the tournament that included an even mix of 'normal' looking fat bass, and skinnier, longer bass to see if it showed anything. I may talk to the MDNR again later in the week to see what they did and what their plans are.

There is still no sign that bass are 'sick' just that some bass are fatter than other bass. I have talked to anglers fishing Lake St. Clair this week who are still catching almost all fat bass in their parts of Lake St. Clair. As I believe I already reported earlier, the MDNR was out on the Lake just before the tournament and reported there is plenty of forage. Many of the pros reported seeing lots of forage. I was out this morning and saw lots of baitfish activity in multiple places.

[djkimmel]

Looks like I will be crazy for this tournament most likely. Interesting that there are significant parts of St. Clair the pros aren't fishing - at least one of the parts is where I'm receiving reports of almost no 'skinny' bass from an angler who is out pretty much every day.

[djkimmel]

Well... I was almost right. Yeah, I know that is stretching it a little. It was won on Lake Huron, which I'm guessing means Lake Huron will finally get more popular. I should have took my Canadian friends up on their offers a number of years ago. So many places to fish...

I did enjoy my conversation with Brandon Palaniuk Sunday morning in the hotel parking lot about his Lake Huron UFO. My wife would probably like to fish that!

[YpsiBass]

A couple of the pros kept talking about those. What are they exactly?

[djkimmel]

Hey YpsiBass - good to see you there and nice to meet your friend!

I didn't want Brandon to think I was trying find his spot but I'm extremely interested in the history of the Great Lakes. There's so much out there that still isn't known or lost to memory. I find it fantastic.

From the way Brandon described it, and he speculated the same, it sounds like it is possibly a water intake though he could not see any pipe coming from it. Those are often buried and not obvious.

I told him there were quite a few major shipwrecks out there too - part of the Great Lakes Triangle - and it could be part of something like that. But there's so much lost man made stuff in the Great Lakes who knows what it could be? Sometimes I can find something on a historical site about larger objects and areas.

I've never seen many of them but there are some real odd things even way out in Lake St. Clair that tend to defy guessing what they are, why, how and when they got there.

[dartag]

The water does end up in St-clair on it's way to Erie so you were right.  If you look at the photos on the web site.  You can see where Lane and Jones were fishing if you look on Google earth.   I think the red roof building is the coast guard station.  The light house in some of the photos is just to the north of it.  There are some great photos of them fishing when freighters go by.  The ice breaker Mackinaw even went by one day.  Might have to tow the boat up there and fish this weekend.

[djkimmel]

I'm guessing this will become a newly popular area. I have a couple areas of Lake Huron higher on my todo list from past nice offers from friendly Canadians. I just haven't go to this part of my todo list before.

The two times I tried to fish the lower part of Lake Huron, Mother Nature to me 'Yankee go home.'

[djkimmel]

I had not talked to anyone who was actually up there about details or looked at the pictures until now but to me, most of their fish were caught in the St. Clair River not Lake Huron. So I'm saying I was right if including the St. Clair River!!!

Down to brass tacks, it was won in the St. Clair River, not Lake Huron unless they caught the bass they weighed in all North of the Coast Guard station.