HARRISON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — It was a day that Trevor McKinney will look back on and wonder, ‘What could have been?’ But despite several hiccups, he managed to land 22 pounds, 3 ounces on Day 2 of the Bassmaster Open at Lake St. Clair to retain his lead with a two-day total of 49-15.
The Noble, Ill., native took the Day 1 lead with the tournament’s biggest bag, a 27-12 limit of smallmouth that gave him a 3-pound advantage over the field. That lead has now shrunk to 11 ounces over Jay Przekurat and Aaron Jagdfeld, who both have a two-day total of 49-4.
“It was one of those days that was a ‘What could it have been?’ day,” he explained. “I lost three 5-pounders. Yesterday was magical. Every fish just got in the boat. Today, it was like I couldn’t keep them on. I should have a sizable lead going into tomorrow, but I’m just going to have to go out and catch a big bag.”
Although a small band of rain passed over the lake mid-morning, it was an otherwise beautiful and calm day on Lake St. Clair, and the Opens anglers took advantage by landing 200 limits and more than 3,700 pounds of bass.
In his two days of fishing, the 2020 College Classic Bracket champion has focused much of his attention on one big area of Lake St. Clair that features a hard sandy bottom and patches of cabbage grass in 10 to 12 feet of water.
A 2.5 Crush City Mayor in the gizzard shad color, a new bait which will be released at ICAST, is the only bait McKinney has used all week. He rigs it on a 1/4--ounce VMC tungsten jighead, also an ICAST release. With little supply, McKinney has been trying to save as many baits as he can, even needing to glue some together today.
“It is honestly the best smallmouth bait I’ve ever thrown in my life,” McKinney said. “Usually, I am a last-minute guy, but I rigged up all of my rods early and this was a bait I looked at and thought, ‘This is a perfect profile for smallmouth.’ It was the first bait I picked up when I got here and the only bait I’ve thrown all week.”
McKinney found the smallmouth hunkered down on clean bottom both days of the tournament, but on Friday he caught several more bass out of the cabbage grass. He also noticed the bass were not acting as aggressively as they had on Day 1.
“The fish just didn’t react to my bait like they did yesterday,” he said. “When I threw my bait in the water yesterday, every bass that saw it, ate it. Today, I had to really work for the bites I got. I had a lot of really big fish look at my bait and didn’t get it. They just put their nose on it and swam back down. A lot of that is because of the pressure on the lake in general.”
McKinney returned to his Day 1 sweet spot, forcing him to expand and explore some of the different areas he found in practice. There were several more boats fishing around him on Friday as well.
Along with the increase in fishing pressure, McKinney felt the calm conditions also hurt his bite.
“I had to really expand on my pattern today and run different stuff because of the boat traffic,” McKinney said. “Honestly, I caught most of the fish that lived in the areas I fished.
“In fishing in general, you need a little wind,” he said. “It makes it a lot tougher when it's calm, especially when the water is clear like it is here. The bass can see your boat a lot more and your bait a lot better.”
While McKinney has burned many of his spots, he has plenty more waypoints to check on Saturday, giving him confidence that he could repeat his Day 1 success one more time.
“I have at least 50 waypoints I haven’t hit. I’m not really saving them; I just haven’t made it to them,” he said. “In an eight-hour day you can only fish so much, and I have some stuff for tomorrow I can expand on, too.”
With bags of 24-3 and 25-1, Przekurat continued his impressive track record at St. Clair and is in the hunt for his first trophy as a boater in the Opens. In his two previous trips to the fishery, he and his father finished 5th in a Bass Pro Shops qualifier, followed by an 11th place during last year's Elite event.
The day did not start well for the Elite Series champion from Plover, Wis., however. Przekurat estimated that he lost 23 pounds of smallmouth in the opening hours of Day 2 before righting the ship around midday.
“I lost 23 pounds at the boat. I set the hook, and they came off. My hook broke on one of them. It was a (mess) of a morning. I did get one good one out of the whole catastrophe, and at 11 o’clock I pretty much caught my whole bag in less than 45 minutes. It was a quick flurry, and they were all big ones.”
In one of the more popular areas of the lake, Przekurat has focused on clean spots near patches of grass in 10 to 13 feet of water. He has only found groups of smallmouth in small sections of his primary area. A dropshot accounted for much of Przekurat’s early success, but as the week has gone on a Strike King Baby Z Too rigged on a jighead has generated more bites.
“You seem to go through the same areas multiple times, and every time you go through you see two or three more,’ he explained. “But then if you get outside of that area, you have a hard time seeing them.”
Jagdfeld, an Adrian College graduate, added 25-0 on Day 2 to his 24-4 performance on Day 1 to remain in 3rd place in his first Open. He anchored his bag with a 5-13 smallmouth.
“I love this lake. I saw the Open was coming here and wanted to jump in and see where I was at skills-wise. Practice was pretty incredible, so I knew I had a shot if everything went right to be in the Top 10.”
Jagdfeld is focusing on a group of smallies on the Canadian side of the lake in 19 to 24 feet of water. Two baits, a Damiki-style bait and a dropshot, have produced all of his bites. Similarly to Day 1, Jagdfeld arrived at his starting area and found the smallies grouped up and aggressive.
Along with the 5-13, which was his second bass of the day, Jagdfeld caught 22 pounds in the first hour of the day.
“It was every cast for the first hour and a half. They're pretty much wadded up on the bottom,” he said. “After that, they separate into singles and pairs, and I can’t catch anything over 3 pounds. I pulled up to a spot at the end of the day and culled out a 4-pounder with a 5-pounder.”
Bentonville, Ark., pro Greg Bohannan landed the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the Day, a 6-2 smallmouth.
Here are the totals for the anglers who advanced to the final day:
1. Trevor McKinney: 49-15
2. Jay Przekurat: 49-04
3. Aaron Jagdfeld: 49-04
4. Jamie Bruce: 47-11
5. Taku Ito: 47-05
6. Trey Schroeder: 46-11
7. Jack York: 46-10
8. Blake Smith: 46-08
9. Kenta Kimura: 46-05
10. Brett Cannon: 45-15
