Steve Clapper dominated the Detroit River FLW Tour with a tube and a dropshot rig. Those were popular choices for the anglers who finished right behind him as well.
Berkley Gulp! baits were ubiquitous, with four of the Top 5 (including Clapper) relying heavily on them.
2nd: Kevin Long
> Day 1: 5, 19-02
> Day 2: 5, 17-10 (10, 36-12)
> Day 3: 5, 18-13
> Day 4: 5, 20-10 (10, 39-07)
Michigan's Kevin Long is a guide on Lake St. Clair, so he naturally chose to focus his efforts there instead of on Lake Erie. He keyed on isolated grass clumps that were about 7 miles offshore and caught his fish on a tube and a jerkbait.
"To find (the grass), you'd just have to idle forever and be bored," he said. "I'd be halfway on plane and see a weedbed come up (on his depthfinder).
"Most of them were about the size of the boat, and there wouldn't be anything around them for half a mile."
A longtime friend of his, Ben Felton, finished 2nd in the co-angler division. He credited Felton with alerting him to the pattern a couple of weeks prior to the event.
"It's something I've done a lot of, but that gave me more confidence to pursue it."
> Tube gear: 7' medium-action Rogue 703 rod, Shimano Sustain spinning reel, 8-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line, 3/8- or 1/2-ounce Lake Town Manufacturing jigheads, 4-inch Mizmo tube (green-pumpkin).
> Jerkbait gear: 6-6 medium-heavy Nutter Rod and Reel Service Steve Daniel Jerkbait Special rod, Shimano Curado casting reel, 14-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon, Lucky Craft Pointer 100 (chartreuse shad).
> The Nutter rod is fiberglass with a lead-wrapped tip to impart action on the bait. It was given to him by a client as a tip.
Main factor in his success – "Just having confidence in my primary areas."
Performance edge – "My bow-mounted Lowrance GPS. I bought it after I cashed a good check at the Potomac, and it's invaluable. Now when I'm on the trolling motor, I don't have to keep running back to the middle of the boat. I can just look down."
Terry Baksay got a lot of help during practice from 16-year-old son Christopher.
3rd: Terry Baksay
> Day 1: 5, 19-05
> Day 2: 5, 20-02 (10, 39-07)
> Day 3: 5, 20-05
> Day 4: 5, 18-13 (10, 39-02)
Connecticut's Terry Baksay was phenomenally consistent on St. Clair – there was only a 1 1/2-pound variance between is four bags.
"I always fish St. Clair when I have that option," he said. "A lot of it has to do with the fact that I know it better (than Erie).
"I don't really like bouncing around on Erie, and I just don't know the Western Basin of it very well."
He practiced with his 16-year-old son Christopher, and they found his fish during their first hour on the water (the Friday before the tournament). It was a grassy stretch the size of a few football fields.
He caught his fish on jerkbaits, tubes and dropshot rigs.
> Jerkbait gear: 6'6" medium-heavy All Star Platinum rod, Pflueger Supreme casting reel (7:1 ratio), 12-pound Seaguar Inviz-X fluorocarbon line, Rapala X-Rap XR10 (blueback shiner) or Lucky Craft Pointer 100 (ghost minnow).
> He said a fast reel was important. "I had to be bringing it."
> Tube gear: 7' medium-heavy All Star Titanium rod, Pflueger Medalist spinning reel 15-pound Power Pro line with 8-pound Seaguar Inviz-X leader (10 feet), 1/4- or 3/8-ounce handpoured jigheads with Daiichi hooks, 4-inch Mizmo tube (green-pumpkin/copper flake).
> Dropshot gear: Same rod, reel and line as tube, 3/8-ounce Bakudon dropshot weight, No. 1 Daichi Standout hook, 3-inch Berkley Gulp! Leech or 3-inch Berkley Gulp! Minnow.
Main factor in his success – "Just being able to stay with the fish, and to figure out what they wanted under each weather condition."
Performance edge – "My Solar Bat sunglasses. A lot of fish followed the jerkbait to the boat, and with the mossback green lenses, I could look through that clear water and see how big they were. Then I'd just throw the dropshot rig or the tube in there and catch the fish."
Thomas Moleski caught his fish on shad-imitating dropshot baits.
4th: Thomas Moleski
> Day 1: 5, 21-04
> Day 2: 5, 19-07 (10, 40-11)
> Day 3: 5, 19-05
> Day 4: 5, 19-12 (10, 39-02)
Indiana jackpotter Thomas Moleski spent the tournament in the same vicinity on Erie as Clapper, but they weren't sharing water.
"It was a little area of several miles – a reef with special rockpiles on top of it," he said. "There was a little bit of a rise from about 26 feet on up to 20.
"The rockpiles on top would concentrate the baitfish, and therefore, the bass."
The magic depth for him was 23 feet. He caught his fish on dropshot rigs featuring several types of shad-imitating baits.
"I just kept going through them and they'd all get their play, but the Berkley 3" Gulp! Fry was the best by far. In the muddy water, that Gulp! scent trail seemed to be the ticket."
> Dropshot gear: 7' medium-action G. Loomis rod, Shimano Stradic spinning reel, 10-pound Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon line, 1/4- to 1/-ounce Bass Pro Shops Bass Casting Sinkers, 1/0 Gamakatsu Finesse Wide-Gap hook, Berkley 3" Gulp! Fry (green-pumpkin), 4" Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm (green-pumpkin) or 4" Poor Boys Jerk (watermelon/cream belly).
> He prefers the bell-shaped BPS sinkers to standard dropshot weights. "I crack them out of the rocks, and I get a lot of residual bites that way."
Main factor in his success – "I had a great practice – maybe the best I've ever had for any tournament. I found an area where there was nobody around, and I was in the zone."
Performance edge – "I'd have to go with the heavy weight, especially for the day it blew hard (day 3). You can't screw up a day or you're out of it, and I could've hand-lined them as long as I had the right weight."
Shad Schenck fished the same general area on Erie each day, but his fish weren't always in the same places.
5th: Shad Schenck
> Day 1: 5, 18-07
> Day 2: 5, 22-12 (10, 41-03)
> Day 3: 5, 16-01
> Day 4: 5, 22-06 (10, 38-07)
Indiana's Shad Schenck was competing at the Detrot for the first time and made a full commitment to Erie. His best area, located about 1 1/2 miles offshore, consisted of numerous rockpiles in about 28 feet of water.
"You might fish 50 or 100 (piles), and there'd be fish on eight or 10 of them," he said. "You just had to keep fishing until you found them."
Once he located fish, it was critical that his dropshot weight stay in contact with the structure.
"If you could feel it down there in the rocks, you were going to get bit."
Dropshot gear: 7' medium-action Fenwick Techna AV spinning rod, Abu Garcia Cardinal 804 spinning reel, 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon (main line and 10-inch leader), 1/2- or 3/4-ounce unnamed dropshot weight, No. 1 Gamakatsu dropshot hook, 3" Berkley Gulp! Alive Leech.
Main factor in his success – "Coming in with a plan to fish Erie the entire time, and then staying focused on one section."
Performance edge – "The Gulp! Alive leech. It's like fishing live bait – that stuff flat works."
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