2020 Bassmaster LIVE at St. Lawrence Thursday Part 1

well how about this for a proposition how about this 86 of the best anglers in the business going to a place starting competition today that has been reliably over the past several years the singular mouth bass beat down side of america that's what we have for you today four days of competition at the third stop of the year for the bass master elite series on the scene one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury well that was the scene earlier today at takeoff tommy sanders here with mark zona at the 2020 site one bassmaster elite at the st lawrence river mark zona uh we have got so many expectations and some new twists this year and really i i think that opening right there with chris johnston one of the best smallmouth anglers on the planet if you want to get truly a lesson in smallmouth bass fishing the next four days are for you take a look at our humminbird leia the lake here this is going to be the st lawrence river about 110 miles of it as it flows out of lake ontario but another possible golden ticket for someone is the addition of lake ontario exactly tommy exactly right something different this time around our anglers are able to go into lake ontario here's the biggest key is new york waters only cannot go into the canadian border due to regulations but this is probably the biggest playing field we will see all year long on the bassmaster elite series we're going out of clayton new york french creek marina you have about a hundred miles of playing field in the river and you have all of lake ontario on the new york side but here's the great thing about this literally one of the best fee literally one of the best smallmouth playing fields we have ever seen on the elite series huge and loaded with smallmouth that has been proved time and time again over the past seven years we're with eight anglers all day today and of course we'll bring you updates on each and every one of our 86 who are out there and have been toiling already this morning we saw evidence of that with canada's chris johnston catching big ones big ones right after the takeoff let's get out there right now here's michael frazier the defending champ this was earlier today micah frazier caught 25 pounds on the last day last year to come from tenth place and win this thing and this is going to be a little bit different this time around we've been here the last few years we're a little bit earlier with that being said the fish are a little bit later for the simple fact that it has been so warm in the north the northeast these fish are very far ahead of where they were at last year all right here's another fellow we will be with also from canada jeff gustafsson two fish already today this one's earlier it's not a baby but second year man jeff dustinson from watton ontario only about 1300 miles from here but he knows this place and he knows his business when it comes to smallmouth fishing was earlier again from jeff gustafsson we'll be with you all day long today not really what we're taking a look at brock mosley coming up here currently in fourth place he has been setting it on fire today new baby at home everything's happening for brock mosley this week exactly right and one of the things that we're watching this time around a little bit tougher for some of our anglers on the smallmouth side we are going to see a little bit more largemouth play in this event also from canada brother of chris johnston corey johnson made some big moves last year and had had just a sort of a hurricane a bad luck he could turn things around very quickly this year and one of the anglers that has so much knowledge on lake ontario a pile of canadian wins under his belt making probably the longest run of any angler in the field out into the lake so far this morning very slow for corey johnston the addition of lake ontario well it's good it's going to appeal to a lot of the anglers there whether it's going to work for a ton of them we will find out as we get through this morning today of course weather plays a factor in all of that somebody we're going to have to watch scott canterbury two fish for him but made the comment scott canterbury if you joined our broadcast the last event down at lake eufaula alabama he said literally the toughest practice of his bass master career here on the saint lawrence river but this year 12 inch limit we uh shouldn't have to mention that too much today but early on you're going to put everything in the boat it's got canterbury of course [Music] sixth place and a second place already this year very third place last year here on the st lawrence greg de palma eighth place last year on st lawrence the new jersey angler if you look at the dynamic right now with greg the palma fishing around a lot of other boats and when i say around literally within 10 to 20 feet of other anglers one of those anglers your unofficial leader chris johnston in the background you see clifford perch and a lot of these anglers we're going to see this on this river fishing very very close to each other palma did a good job of catching some big largemouth last year as well help him get that good finish qualify for the bassmaster classic and take advantage of that finish from the top half of the field that's something greg de palma with all kinds of big expectations the new jersey angler here we go we saw him first thing in the show chris johnston man he's a he's a force to be reckoned with led three days here last year yeah and here's the scary thing with chris johnston like his brother corey johnston from canada a ton of wins on this body of water and and the scary part about it is chris johnson said yesterday oh i'm on them and i have a lot of spots but the other scary thing is he made the comment if i get around 22 to 23 pounds for five bass i'm gonna lay off of them on day one we do not want to see that because unofficially he's about right there yeah we do i want to encourage that we want to see plenty more of chris johnston on the way today again he led the first three days of the tournament last year just got closed out at the last minute by micah frazier and what he has shown us today is very very impressive some giants coming in the boat angle from ontario canada just across the border here we're gonna oh we're looking forward to some great great things coming back yeah it's great back it's been almost five or six weeks since we uh sort of restarted the season and lake eufaula and alabama had a wheel of a tournament there and of course we fully expect to have a whale of a tournament here that has been the story each and every year since we've been here since 2013. welcome to the bassmaster studios tommy sanders mark zona here with you today we can't wait to get on with this and so many things to get solved to get figured out some things we won't figure out till the final daisy exactly and really one of the the biggest dynamics in this tournament right now is that lake lake ontario so many of our events all these guys have to stay in the st lawrence river but i truly mean this if you want to see some of the best fish catching one of the best bodies of water in the world the saint lawrence river always shows up and well for the first hour and a half it's done exactly that yeah if you're a smallmouth fan this is the best proposition you're gonna get all year long we we urge you to stay with us got great coverage all day long with you here on bassmaster live got the full crew in place here ronnie in suits ronnie moore i know you you're covering a lot of things you've talked to a lot of the anglers you're full of expectations and you've got some problems to solve as well i'm really excited this week we've got uh we've been here at the st lawrence river five previous times not counting this year and we've been basically the middle of july all the way through the end of august and it's been different every week throughout that process so i'm excited to see how this plays out and if it looks like past years and what that weight that final weight that we see on sunday what that ends up being but this should be a good one no matter how it plays out such we're going out of clayton new york and not waddington this year we miss washington dearly that is for sure but for several reasons it sports uh regulations health concerns we are going out of a bit larger town but a great town and we got a great tournament on tap you know but practice a lot of guys said they didn't have the best practice i talked to one last night brock mosley you had a his wife had a baby in in mississippi and he said i'm not very happy and he goes out and he's leading the event this morning well we'll see if they were sandbagging on us or not we're going to see how the rest and see how long that lead holds out as well it's going to be changing all day long exactly right and the guy obviously that we're going to be keeping our eye on early this morning chris johnston one of the best smallmouth fishermen that we could possibly cover on the planet we're gonna get out with chris johnston right now already with a giant five bass limit in his live well fast track has it at over 20 pounds we had 25 bags over 20 pounds first day last year we got five in the box right now um probably got about 20 pounds two good ones one foreign change so uh i'd really like to call two more out on this spot sorry i got a whole bunch of them i'm looking at them on the panoptix here just dropping down on they've kind of scattered here um i decided to start here i figured it'd be a couple boats here and i want to milk this spot for all it's worth before i get out of here so i'm gonna get whatever i can i lost one about five but it's been a while since i've got a bite [Music] [Music] two more good ones all we need i'd love to not have to even go to the lake there is a bunch them under my boat right now conditions different every year last year he was looking at him he was looking at spawning fish exactly right chris johnson fishing let's call it he's fishing on the front side of an island near the mouth of lake ontario not going to get real specific a lot of the locals that are watching this broadcast know that area very very well look at the size of that small mouth right there we called that five pounds i'm gonna go a little bit light unofficially uh but fishing about 25 to 35 feet of water and one of the things that chris johnston said was there are hundreds in this hundred yard stretch but one of his fears that other anglers were gonna find this area obviously that has transpired this morning um but that is very humbling to be the other anglers around him and watch this guy sack about 22 pounds in the first hour yeah they may need counseling at this point after watching this display that candidates chris johnston has put on hasn't been a stellar season so far for chris he struggled in the first two tournaments but uh where he can make it all well with a good four-day performance here again we're going four days all 86 anglers fishing the first two then we'll start making cuts that was action from this morning already from chris johnston things have been out there short of a couple hours among those like you mentioned mark zona fishing very very close to chris and getting to witness all of that is greg de palma really made his breakthrough here last year his first year with the elite series finished 23rd fast master classic earlier at lake guntersville sports and outdoors bassmaster classic world championship today greg the palmer actually sang the exact same thing that chris johnston said well i hope nobody else found this exact spot right here and it's not just it's not just four guys finding the spot either it's four very good small mouth anglers you know it's a good spot as well yeah well one of those actually not on that spot is another good smallmouth angler canada's jeff gustafsson got to talk to jeff last night and one of the anglers that we actually heard probably had one of the best practices mixing in a little bit of shallow water fishing early in the morning and later in the afternoon definitely seeing gustafson hooked up here two fish in his live well that might be a better one yeah and really with the conditions here you're going to see a lot of guys fishing deep on this river oh it gets your heart pumping i haven't seen this one yet but it's feels like a big one it came up right away and wanted to jump so i'm pretty sure it's a bass but it's really digging and staying down there all right hopefully it's a bass oh yeah that's a big one that's the kind we want nice that's a st lawrence river five pounder baby yes that's more like it you're live with us i'm shaking now hey if that's a five how big was that [Laughter] two guys from the other side the canadian side fishing the american side of the st lawrence and lake ontario mr johnson live jeff gustafson striking big it's gonna be a good one yeah yeah i feel i feel really good i knew i would there's our leaderboard so far this is unofficial as per bass track of course chris johnston big limit the boat already 20 pounds plus almost 21 already clark wendlandt just popped in a few minutes ago with a great great limit eric hudnall from louisiana brought mostly from mississippi man oh man we're from all over the map and we are all over the map we're gonna dial it in some more for you when we return after this quick break we'll be right back the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury [Music] what do a taco and a taco truck have in common nothing if you want to play you need a tacoma when i'm on the road for work or for fun i always like to have a reliable generator around this open frame inverter from champion is ideal because it's lighter than a standard open frame generator and more affordable than a traditional inverter the remote start helps me start up the generator or shut it off without having to leave my camper it provides essential power for things like charging my boat batteries also makes life a lot more comfortable for myself and my family introducing the bash you tv app get the most out of your bashu tv subscription and learn on the go with the bashu tv app unlimited access to 700 plus training videos multiple new releases each week including seminars on water videos live shows interviews and other original content the bashu tv app never stop learning [Music] pre-collision system standard on the 2020 tacoma so you can go from one epic playground to the next if you want to play you need a tacoma the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is brought to you by power pole [Music] skeeter boats yamaha and by toyota things are getting going fast here early on in this four days of fishing we'll have it all for you here on bassmaster live the site one bassmaster elite on the saint lawrence right now chris johnston the man on top clark wendlandt of texas has popped in there as long along with derrick hudnall brock mosley tyler yvette greg de palma we saw him put some good ones in the boat so far micah frazier the defending champ chris saldane kyle monte randy sullivan rounding out our top 10. that will change and change often and they are going to smash them today that's one thing you can count on in the world of bass fishing we're going to take you out now we've got our angler of the year leader and second place right now we saw earlier scott canterbury let's go to second place in the winter our last stop at lake you fall in alabama but it grows and you you talked earlier about conditions today you said conditions different what did you mean by that much different with this cloud cover you're going to see a lot of guys either doing this fishing largemouth or fishing deeper that small mouth bite generally won't crank up real good for the shallow ones until that sun comes out stay on everybody buddy gross made a comment that he caught a big big large mouth yesterday she barely was hooked we'll take her i'm a largemouth fishing what am i doing out there nice and good buddy gross in tennessee where we are headed later might be the only one but we got one he's doing what he knows and that is largemouth bass fishing we had ample evidence of that at our last stop lake you follow which turned out to be a fantastic tournament and buddy grows starting in 10th place on the on the last 10th place and i believe i'm gonna call it he was somewhere around seven pounds down yeah seven nine pounds nine ounces when we came into the final day of that tournament we walked in the studio and granted we like to manufacture a little bit of drama on championships one of the biggest comebacks that we have ever seen on the bassmaster elite buddy gross made a comment after he won this event absolutely has been a whirlwind in his life since then back to buddy gross live right now i can't quit smiling still i mean it was that was the biggest event in my life i mean i i went down there with anticipation of just trying to get a top you know top 20 finish and we wound up making a top 10 by the skin of our teeth and then we just you know the lord blessed us enough to make a great great comeback i mean it was uh it was an awesome show i mean it was made good tv but it's also a crazy great feeling in me i mean i tell you it gives me the confidence to do good here and they're just in the series itself i'm going to retie this later i'm nervous it just broke but it's uh it's something that i want another one of i tell you that i'm gonna dig hard and try to make it happen again it was uh all the press we got out of that and all the family and friends and texts and emails man it didn't get no better i mean the bass fans are crazy i mean it's just they follow it and they know what's going on and people i don't know messaged me and talking to me congratulating me man it was just a great deal i'm just glad we're back out here fishing i gotta fish and try to do it again just left you you know you went on an elite series tournament you could take your time sure trying on leaders whatever you like whatever he's earned it he's top 12 at the first stop of the year got himself a win he's second place a rookie a rookie in name only but a legitimate rookie here and he's leading that race as well now now b w trailer hitch is on the line a little bit of a extra coverage here from the man hey we've been seeing him all day coming up on the leaderboard brock mosley mississippi and brock i know you got a lot on your mind thanks for spending a couple of minutes here if you can talk to us about what you've been doing how it's gone for you so far today and what stood out in your mind you know um i didn't have a really good practice i had a lot a lot of stress on my mind this week uh with uh my wife having a baby and uh smallmouth just hasn't been good to me all week i have caught some good ones but uh one day in practice i got you know so stressed out and irritated trying to mess with smallmouth i decided to come to the bank for a couple hours to clear my head and i ended up with a really really big sack of largemouth so i figured i'd come uh give me a solid start to the day you know 17 18 pounds and then then go try to upgrade with a few smallmouth throughout the rest of the day so off to a pretty good start i got one really really big largemouth you know what i'm doing i have to kind of keep in my head you know how much fish i want to use and burn through before i go smallmouth fishing so i figured when i get to my smallest one being three pounds that's when i'm gonna go to uh go back offshore and large a small amount of fish today well brock congratulations that second that second child that new daughter just couldn't wait she had to get into this world and maybe see you do well on the first day of the tournament you are juggling a lot of stuff in your mind this week yeah it's been a it's been stressful you know and uh you know you always hope for the best but you know you always think you know what could go wrong and i'm you know a thousand miles away but uh you know everything turned out great uh mama and baby are healthy and happy and that's the most important thing you know to me right now and i figured like i said i'm coming coming up here largemouth fishing right now and i figured it'd be a great way to clear my head and get a few fish in the boat and uh kind of relax the rest of the day uh but uh i will say today's a little less stressful than yesterday was or the you know the days prior to this so uh everything's all good now just gotta just gotta do my part now make some money all right well all congratulations to the mosley family and now that you got it on track here on the river man it is all good for mississippi's brock mosley out there exactly right for brock mosley we're gonna actually head probably as far down river past waddington new york where we've always gone out for the bassmaster elite series with gerald swindle with a couple catches earlier today little guy and one thing to wrap up brock mosley just getting off the call with him he finished second here in 2017 so he has the capability of smallmouth to do well he just like he said got a lot on his mind he needs to clear it out first he ain't no groaning but hey this is all earlier again with gerald solid one right there for swimming better and gerald swindle live you know i swapped uh swapped up louis here a little bit i caught caught one jerk in a minute ago and i come to this new area and i just caught a two and a half jerking i had another bite on chatterbait didn't get it didn't feel big swapped over this jerkbait but maybe it's what they want today i mean they're moving in this is just a little trough right here it's a rip-rap bank it's a little trough in the grass it's four or five foot deeper right here than it is right out there they get in here in the mornings and they feed but what i'm noticing is i'm not seeing as many cruising it doesn't mean that the fish are gone for life it just means this couple hours there may not be as many up feeding so you just kind of keep hitting spots so you hit one where they're all up we're just gonna keep moving you know smallmouth fishing if you're not catching them move that it's not oh i'll wait them out no no no you won't you're not if they're not biting just keep moving you have to know that that they're they have moves they get in and that could be a hundred of them there and they not catch them then when they get ready to bite you catch all 100 of them the hardest thing i've ever learned up here is to move even if you have no reason to move or nowhere to go just go somewhere this little backwash area right here should be should be another bite right here notice i'm kind of throwing out over the sand now just to check them see if there's any out here in these deeper sandy holes well gerald swindle with definitely a game plan and some guiding principles for today of course he went top 12 back here in 2017 of course his career marked by angler of the year achievement two angler of the year titles for gerald swindle the first back in 2004. and here's one of the amazing things about swindle if you look at his entire career on the bassmaster elite series not a lot of wins those right there angler of the year trophies uh just a model of consistency and he made the the comment here he said look i'm not going to get out there on that river and drag around in 30 to 50 feet of water i have to stay consistent have to say consistent the way to do that here for swindle fishing shallower take a look at our bassmaster angler of the year that aoy leaderboard for 2020 and of course scott canterbury whom we have visited with spent some time with buddy gross the rookie in second place right there those two separated by only four points uh strong strong field there in that race very scary looking at fourth place right there jamie hartman originally from new york oh may pop up yeah we'll be right back after this on bassmaster live the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury [Music] you don't know their names yet but you will it's been said that a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work getting you to that fishing spot is key and bully dog gets your truck road ready no matter where we give you the horsepower and towing torque right when you need it we make getting there better make your ride a bully dog at mercury we invested thousands of hours of engineering manpower so you can enjoy hours and hours of untapped horsepower introducing the all-new v6 mercury pro xs light quick efficient mercury go boldly at mercury there are no limits to what we'll do to make sure you have no limits either introducing the all-new v8 mercury pro xs light quick efficient mercury go boldly [Music] you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury so glad you're with us for bassmaster live giving you live coverage the third stop of the year for the bassmaster elite series and not just any stop this is the famed the fabled saint lawrence river with bonus fishing in lake ontario this year for these anglers of course we'll go all the way to noon eastern time with our morning session take a one hour break they'll fish on we'll cover it we'll keep rolling we're gonna bring you up to date at 1 p.m and take you all the way to 3 p.m eastern time that's generally when the weigh-in is going to start here in clayton new york the johnston brothers chris johnson has been one of our big stunned so far today but corey johnson courtney johnston is almost in buffalo new york no no in all honesty corey johnston on the face of stoney island so many tournaments a lot of charter boats out in that area we're going to be able to talk about that the next four days too okay uh but here's what the dynamic is looking at the two johnston brothers from canada both of them fishing very close to the lake or out in the lake exactly where they cut their teeth growing up oh craig lam one of our team of reporters out on the water today was talked to both of them and they're it's a big deal for them that the canadian waters are off limits yeah definitely a lot of their winds throughout you know their late teens and early 20s have come out into the canadian waters um see chris johnston hooked up here but the other side is a lot of this field does not have knowledge of lake ontario because all of our tournaments have been in the st lawrence river which gives that these two a distinct advantage in that region of this body of water and sunday and mondays practice days weather the the 30 to 40 mile an hour made it hard to even great point so so they that's two days that the field couldn't go and survey efficiently out there chris hooked up here hmm oh my skinny fish that is one of the unhealthiest looking smallmouth oh that doesn't look good skinny old fish i'm gonna do a little culling here you see a lot of guys around around each other very close early this morning chris johnston garrett paquette greg de palma and clifford perch from bassmaster radio tom abraham wanted us to talk about there was nothing against that especially on the first day of a tournament where these guys basically it comes down to communication but there is no rule um there's an unwritten rule on days two three and four don't come in on a leader um but obviously these guys found the exact same school of smallmouth and they could have found completely independent with no knowledge of the other being this is the first time they're getting to eyeball each other on the spot a little breakfast buffet there brock mosley four and a half pounder he's up to 18 on the day might be a bass there's something following it up oh you talk about brock mosley and we saw buddy gross fish in largemouth that's the saint lawrence river of old seeing guys catching largemouth and good ones that's what used to dominate here uh before certain invasive species have come into the river and this lake that we're going to talk about during the broadcast like a 12 to 14 pound bag of smallmouth back in the day was great too we've been here like 19 times and like only the last seven have been smallmouth events everything else was large i was in those tournaments big walleye for chris johnson that might be the biggest wallet i've ever got holy i mean that'd be some good eating right there that's a good one i would knock the side off of that thing oh get out of here if a canadian says it's the biggest he's ever caught it's a bacon now if you don't follow the bassmaster elite series that walleye does not count yeah if it did it would be game over boy but talk about it he's going to weigh it for us that's awesome great instagram we've got to watch this take a guess i'm going to go that's a that's an 11. it's an 11. 10 and a half 10 11 11. nine and a half pounds you're there big guy to big eyed walleye the scales are scale's off chris johnston seen his share of walleyes and he has done his share of fishing and more growing up in canada chris johnston and corey johnston are two big men from canada in the field here that's won't break we're in peterborough ontario canada this is where i grew up this is kind of the homestead this is where it all goes down all the prep for tournaments and we're just hanging out and showing you where we came from it all started at a very young age my dad was a avid term and angler here in ontario he did very well and between my brother and i we were very spoiled or my mom just wanted to get us out of the house too maybe but my dad had us in the boat practicing with him for tournaments and then as we got older i think i fished my first terminal i was 11 years old and the only reason i got in it was because my brother got grounded so it was a good start for me i was excited and we ended up winning the tournament growing up um in canada we're very fortunate hockey's a big passion of ours we could be sitting in the garage one day kind of playing around with fishing tackle in the garage and then decide you know what let's get a game of hockey going and we got some nets are back we dragged the nets down to the pond and in about 10 minutes we're on the ice we're playing pond hockey we'll be out there for two or three hours at a time and um we did it when we were five years old we do when we're 20 years old our colleague dave mercer's told us about chris and of course you learn about chris if you follow bass fishing through the years this guy is used to winning that is for sure absolutely right chris and corey johnston um a tough year so far their 2020 season uh but definitely two of the powerhouses on the bassmaster elite series four top tens and only 17 tournaments in his really young career as an elite series pro the angler from peterborough canada's best elite finish of course last year just closed out at the very end of day number four by micah frazier had a good st johns river to start his career with the elite series uh back at the first of 2019 last year of course getting a lot of a lot of valuable experience as he goes along gonna be one of the stars no one would argue that point with anyone greg de palma this star sergeant started to shine his first year with the bassmaster elite series and started to shine right here on the st lawrence worth noting chris johnson's the only canadian with a professional victory of any kind you know at the bass fishing level and one of the things we haven't been able to really hammer on with all that cloud cover here look there's a lot of guys on shallow water smallmouth last year we got to see a lot of that with chris johnston but whenever it is cloudy here okay whether you're on the river or you're out in the lake i see them down there those shallow water smallmouth do not bite as well and it's all either largemouth bite real good when it's cloudy here or the deeper water smallmouth are way more consistent look for if that sun comes out which is supposed to be supposed to yeah later today or tomorrow that shallow water game will get going somehow and they're eating good this thing's fatty little guy but fat he wasn't coming off that hiabou says got him boy broke the rest of my line off i'm lucky i didn't lose that fish re-tie that one small one but it's a fat little guy it's number five i believe see you said it those smaller shallow small mouths are harder to bite in the clouds they visually can't see as well when it is dark when that sun it helps them see but a large amount of smallmouth largemouth can see much better in cloudier conditions than smallmouth they really are visual feeders they need that light and the largemouth just get if you look at the history of the saint lawrence river the largemouth just bite way better when it's cloudy um but there's been so many tournaments here that guys want to fish shallow for smallmouth when it's cloudy and you will get burned well there's a look at our leaderboard right now this is unofficial this is bass track but of course as we've seen uh plenty of chris johnston this morning he is on top by a huge margin brock mosley though and derek hudnall all given chase more to come on bassmaster live the site one bassmaster elite of st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury [Music] [Music] wherever the trail gets rough and the mud gets deep you'll find a toyota tacoma it's the best-selling compact pickup in america for 12 years and it's not because we baby them if you want to play you need a tacoma [Music] it's been said that a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work getting you to that fishing spot is key and bully dog gets your truck road ready no matter where we give you the horsepower and towing torque right when you need it we make getting there better make your ride a bully dog your time on the water is precious you return season after season to make unforgettable memories fight a few fish reconnect with friends and re-center yourself if you count on having this time you need an outboard you can count on to power it that's why boaters stay with yamaha for the long run for life they know reliability starts here if you want to play you need a tacoma you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury well coming up next year going to be big doings in everyone's favorite cow town there it is beautiful fort worth texas and the world championship for 2021 the bassmaster classic coming to lake ray roberts very very big time fishery big bass fishery there near fort worth texas the new dickies arena state of the art arena going to be the site for all the pageantry all the fun all the excitement all the nail biting down to the very end of it the world championship from fort worth that is coming up in 2021 first time ever we can't wait for that that is going to be good stuff texas as always we're going to make it to texas this year as well a little bit later on and uh another big weight tournament oh yeah it could be a really good big weight tournament can't wait the great town fort worth if it's on your bucket list go into the classic that'd be a good one to sign up for make your plans right now let's get back out onto the water with a man who has won that their bat bassmaster classic back oh not so many years ago our own davey height he knows what it's like to hold that world championship trophy and uh he was he we voted him our mvp in coverage last last time at lakeview fallen saved us oh he saved us he sniffed out the big story of the day big story of the tournament davey what have you sniffed out for us today well i've been fortunate enough you know this is a huge fishery obviously with the saint lawrence river and now this this event opening up lake downtario the u.s side of lake ontario but i was fortunate enough to hunt down chris johnson i had to move away from him just a little bit to get a little better service but the group of fishermen that found that school of fish it's absolutely incredible if you've never been to the saint lawrence river i mean we've got about a hundred miles 90 miles or so of huge river to fish along with lake ontario the u.s side and for five of the best anglers to find that one school fish is absolutely incredible if you think about it for them to to find that group of fish and only two and a half days of practice is absolutely incredible but here's what's even more incredible and i've i've been there um not that these guys are doing anything wrong they're all good smallmouth fishermen but chris johnson was showing them that he had a few tricks up his sleeve when they were on that group of fish but here's the one thing that i think this term is going to be so interesting number one we're here a little earlier than we normally are but the water temperature i don't remember seeing 74 or 75 degree water out on this main river the water temperature is really hot it's beautiful here today it's cloudy it's supposed to clear up a little bit but you know upper 70s but they've had high temperatures here the last few weeks so i think that's going to maybe slow down the small mouth bite and when you say slow down we've already got 20 pounds on the leaderboard so it's still going to be great but for the first time in a long time and i know you'll remember this see i think largemouth could be a player this week why do you think largemouth can be a player when if somebody's just joining this broadcast traditionally they are a non-factor throughout a four-day event yeah they really have been over the last uh 10 or 15 years remember i started my career here back in the early mid 90s the largemouth were always a factor you didn't know which one's going to win there's still huge smallmouth here the largemouth just have not received the pressure and the the average size of those largemouth because they haven't received the fishing pressure has increased the higher water which gives those largemouth better habitat of shallow the vegetation the reeds the cattails the milfoil all that stuff good good habitat the higher water less pressure has all helped the largemouth population and the the warmer water temperatures has really really in my opinion scattered out the small mouth i think we'll see anglers catch a smallmouth especially when the sun comes out from five feet deep to i've seen some anglers fishing today already 45 to 50 feet deep so when you talk about trying to cover that big of an area of the water column from five to 50 feet those small mouth really really spread out and they're not biting real aggressively too i've talked to a lot of the anglers that really have to use their electronics and stay on those fish and and just keep keep a bait in front of them for a long time to get those fish to bite where when those small mouths are aggressive you see on your graph when you're dropping the bait down they come up and meet that bait it never makes it to the bottom that hasn't happened so much this week chris johnston davey our unofficial leader traditionally he would manage this area and probably leave do you see him burning it down basically because of the other competitors around him you know i would z i mean you've got to think uh day one day one is free game those anglers probably never even saw one another there during the practice period because you know they're fishing 13 14 hours a day and found one spot but when you arrive on that spot that you chose to start on obviously your best spot that you think and there's four or five other great anglers there and all these fishermen are great anglers then you better burn them because if you don't someone else will and and you know if chris johnson is able to just use one of his spots locations schools of fish whatever you might want to say on day one and weigh in over 20 pounds boy you better look out he led three days here last year and came so so close to winning if he starts off today like it looks like he's certainly going to he's already got 20. boy he's going to be tough to catch but i really think we better keep in mind the largemouth the guy that's going to be able to catch 18 19 maybe 20 pounds every single day davey good stuff i mean you're on top of what's going on right now and plus davey gives us the historical perspective as well he was back there in those thousand island largemouth tournaments here we'll talk about that he's talking about the largemouth take a look at what we just saw from buddy growth here's the problem though with this okay the problem with with largemouth fishing on the st lawrence river it is very easy to catch 15 to 17 pounds a largemouth it is very hard to catch 18 to 20 pounds not just for one day so here's a largemouth right here earlier today from buddy gross it's very hard to do that four days in a row here where it's much more consistent to do that on the small mouth like we're looking at right here with chris johnston earlier today and the other side is there's just so many three and three quarter to four and a quarter pound smallmouth to where they don't reload um as quickly the largemouth just do not reload as the the deeper water smallmouth do here um day after day after day look it's a one day not even a one day tournament really um it's just hard to stay in the game to win a tournament here now with largemouth so where in the 80s and 90s that's how it was done yeah the 18 pound limit would be the winning every tournament i fished here somewhere by the end of the tournament the largemouth guys would rise up on a multiple day event um to wear that slowly transition with the arrival of zebra mussels and gobies which we're going to break all of that down the next four days and you got to imagine with it only being new york waters u.s waters in play all those bays those marinas those those shallow areas that large mouth are going to be that's cut in half tremendously because all those places on the canada side that people can spread out make the largemouth last longer you only have half those spots available the problem with the larger where a guy gets in trouble you get in a numbers game like dude you can crush the largemouth and you're like i know there's going to be a big one next i know we'll go have some fun and it'll it'll trick you it'll fool you to where boy you come to a weigh-in and you're like wow 17 pounds did not do it what did you think of brock mosley's largemouth versus smallmouth strategy if he gets down to his smallest large amount that's three pounds then he's going out for small i thought it was fantastic because he said he wanted to calm himself down the other side is this this time of year okay the small mouth traditionally just got done spawning in the last really 14 days we've seen chris johnston with a small mouth already that did not weigh a lot uh the other side is they're not potted up together like we see them in the third week of august fourth week august on those those deeper water structures to where you can catch 10 20 30 you know throughout your day it's a lot more talking to guys like scott canterbury and micah frazier that did so good here last year the fish are scattered out and not potted up yet unlike the area that chris johnston has found a lot of the anglers that are fishing around waddington ogden's berg and morristown it's just one here one they're good ones but they're not grouped up as well and you'd think they're going to have to go through like we saw with chris go through some small spawned out ones too some of the lightest lightest time of the year for some of these fish they're going to be catching the the real frightening proposition for the rest of the field and i know we're very early in the day one chris johnson see buddy gross hooked up here ain't much and like that large mouth right there is exactly what will get you in trouble out of spotty water pound so beware of numbers although numbers of smallmouth what won it last year for micah fraser caught more numbers than anyone else so two tails large mouth tail and a small mouth tail we're following here and i gotta go back to what we talked about earlier we have chris johnston unofficially at about 20 to 21 pounds i think he's a lot more than that okay a lot and one we saw [Music] buddy gross going largemouth all the way he is the most recent winner on the bassmaster elite series this is our third stop of the year everything's going a little bit later but we hope to get our whole season in before this 2020 is all done chris johnston over 20 pounds significantly over 20 pounds if mark zona has his guess right there brock mosley right behind clark wendlandt of texas making a move up clint davis of alabama has moved up into the top ten along with brandon card and jeff gustavsson plenty more action going on so many stories to follow i'm gonna take a quick break and be back on bassmaster live the site one bassmaster elite of st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury [Music] chris lane brings the pain [Music] key ashley the native son gets it done jordan lee back to back domination [Applause] fish and win with skeeter real money fish out of your skeeter boat win a skeeter approved contingency paying event and you could add five thousand dollars to your winnings just enter fish and win it's that easy rules and conditions apply visit skeeterboats.com and click the real money logo to register and learn more or visit your local skeeter dealer fish win get paid up to five thousand dollars go to skeeterboats.com and see why now is the best time to interfish and win with skeeter real money [Music] you don't know their names yet but you will so [Music] you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury what a pleasure it is to be enjoying live sports on this day i i think uh some other significant sports are going live uh starting today as well more essential intel on that a little bit later but uh hey we got four days of live coverage here for you on bassmaster live tomorrow friday we start at 8 a.m eastern time a little bit earlier than we did today and we are going seven hours straight we're going to point out absolutely right yes sir we are not going to leave for a minute we're going to take our break at midday today and which we'll roll tape through the break we'll see all the fishing but we got live for you all day tomorrow friday starting at 8 a.m eastern time right here espn2 get out to our leader leader since really first thing first out of the box this morning first four minutes of the event chris chris johnston and greg de palma fishing right next to each other a lot of anglers in that area clifford perch jared paquette but it has been a chris johnston show for a lot of the other anglers in that area davey hype making the comment chris johnson had a lot of little tricks where he out fished the competition yeah i want to find out what his little tricks are because we uh we want to know what's down there trickeration besides big smallmouth that's definitely down there wow this thing's vicious what do you eat for breakfast this morning besides a flat worm might be another one of them walleyes toothy critter i think i went out a hair deeper on that point three guy drops it down there he he got it it's not a giant but it'll definitely help or a drum folks who were just tuning in for the first time probably we saw guys boat flipping big ones down south the last time we were on espn2 lake you follow here totally different they're in 30 40 feet of water maybe six eight pound test instead of 20 pound test you have to be much more patient and fish are coming up from that deep water you you could hurt them if you bring them up too quick so they're being careful making sure they keep them hooked up keep them fine and they get them in the boat uh by hand instead of swinging them in but we do call it scoop and score when they grab them out of the water we do is that what we call okay all right shout out to our friend mike golick from golic and wingo he's been watching the broadcast oh really and uh he's really into what buddy gross and brock mosley are doing for the simple fact golic considers himself a doc skipping specialist i don't want him to listen got to go ahead so we saw a photo of you with him just recently where was that i'm gonna tell you i went fishing with golic a few weeks ago his game is deep water he just does not know that oh no no wait that's a backhanded top right there i think backhanded compliments you've got de palma with a good one right there nicole and johnson still hasn't got one in johnston thinks this is another species like we saw earlier after they catch their five fish that they can cull that means any bigger fish they can release the smaller fish and add to their total weight five fish limit i thought golic had skills z no he does deep water i mean that's his game but he's drawn to the bank i noticed he's trying who is it in many different ways are you trying to send him a message here listen i'm going to try to get him as a guest analyst at our classic next year i was pounding him when we were out on the water together wrong species right there for chris johnston everything he's hooking though is big it seems right no matter what species big drum right there for chris johnston chris johnson obviously making a big noise early on in this four days of fishing which comprise the third stop of the year for the bassmaster elite series and through all this action we're coming to you live and with live sports always running in the background is that big powerful engine called fantasy and the young man who is who is in charge of that engine right now right here in the studio there he is ladies and gentlemen ronnie moore at the screen of knowledge the screen of knowledge bringing a little bit of rapple of bassmaster fantasy fishing if you're just joining us for the first time with our bassmaster live production fantasy fishing's similar to fantasy football except there's five buckets and you pick an angler based on how they've done this season they're in bucket a which is the top bucket or if they've struggled they'll be in the bottom bucket and this week we've got a lot of really great anglers that are high percentage picks the guys who are picked the most we mentioned it earlier new york's jamie hartman he got two wins on the bassmaster elite series last year very seasoned on the st lawrence river 32 percent of the fans are picking him stetson blaylock's been very hot since the start of last year finished second points got a win last year he's 25 seth fighter one who always does well up north and at the st lawrence river 36 and the guys that we're watching on live today cory and chris johnston they've had a tough two events to start their elite series season this year but we know they can catch them and they've caught them here before and that is why over 50 percent we have 53 percent and almost 60 percent of fantasy fishing players have picked them i hate picking guys that high because you try to find something a little bit different but when it comes to my team i had to go with them they're just i had to go with chalk on those but otherwise there are some guys like clifford perch a great smallmouth angler we see him fishing within a boat's length from chris johnston he's on that same school of fish only one percent of people picking him so i decided to take that gamble hank cherry our classic champ has is a great smallmouth angler a great jerk bait angler and that should work we'll get uh probably a report from him later when his bass track updates and a guy like chad pipkins he's from michigan not far from uzona great with smallmouth electronics he should be a deepwater specialist to watch too but that's a little bit of rapple of bassmaster fantasy fishing it's free you could sign up on bassmasterfantasy.com you can win prizes every event rapple has given out over ninety thousand dollars of prizes all year and if you've continued to do it all season you can win the overall top prize which is a huge prize pack we called you the matthew barry grant fishing correct me if i'm wrong you were in the top one percentile of the last event is that true yes very very good top four percent overall but uh i haven't gotten a win yet if i do get a win you guys will delegitimize it somehow no no no no no you're the odds maker you're the handicapper you're the master inside info small look a big look at the big picture courtesy of ronnie moore in the screen of knowledge see if we can get back out to buddy gross right now fishing largemouth very close to our takeoff in clayton new guys on the leaderboard derek huddles up to second place louisiana missouri's chad morgan taylor third place with 19 pounds on the day oh no well the one thing is if you're doing this you are not going to have much company you are going to have free reign of every largemouth bay pretty much on the u.s side oh his skin folk like it today i hope you're right bad day i'd hate to go in with four and i throw back keepers i can't tell if that's a cable laying in that hole or not i hate made the comment especially after we talked to davey height right there and davey's fished so many events here taped a lot of fishing shows through the years is you're gonna catch a lot of those but to catch that four pound average which obviously that is traditionally what you need here uh very very complicated to do for four days in fact i think of our five previous events here i don't think any of the anglers who won their 20 fish for four days i think they were all smallmouth uh the previous five times have been here so maybe this could be a year or the conditions could set up you could have three or four and have 17 smallmouth when the day's done or when the tournament's done but yeah the the other thing about largemouth fishing on this river is when you get cloud cover like this especially when you get closer you see buddy gross here back in one of the bays uh-oh that's what we're after stay on there baby stay on there stay on there come here oh bubba get in the boat whoa had my hand on him i ain't gonna get him in fine careful really this is awful forget it made me nervous my gum arms ain't long enough not a giant we'll take him one two three four five got our limit thank you brother we just gotta do some cuddling now that was an interesting layout that was yeah you know when your arms aren't long enough that's where that's that's simple physics it's a simple math buddy gross you know his last official day of fishing he caught 27 pounds 11 ounces of largemouth i can't blame him keeping him honest here moving up to the other side of the country basically chris johnston though from right around in this area just across the border still holding on to that lead but derrick hudnall cutting into it a little bit right there and chad morgan taylor joining the battle for sure brock rose mostly all the rest including clark winlet lots of changes going on and more fishing coming from the saint lawrence we'll be right back the site won bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury i'm pro anchor andy montgomery i've been making my living with strike king products for a long time so when they show me the new tour grade line i was all in i knew i could trust it what i didn't know was how easy it was to use with the spooling tool and the prepaid envelope to recycle your old line included in every single box not only is it the best line on the market it gives you the easiest fishing experience possible find out more at strikeking.com introducing the bashu tv app get the most out of your bashu tv subscription and learn on the go with the bashu tv app unlimited access to 700 plus training videos multiple new releases each week including seminars onward or videos live shows interviews and other original content the bashu tv app never stop learning in the wild nature dictates that when it's time to eat animals will instinctively find and devour the meal that satisfies them most in the water berkeley powerbait's scientifically proven formula triggers the natural predatory instinct in bass now available in a plethora of shapes sizes and colors berkeley powerbait fish bite and both let go [Music] [Music] you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury third stop of the year for the elite series here let's take you back to 2019 a year ago this very event at the st lawrence river would be the fifth time the elites had been here the field of 80 plus arrived here on the scene and the look of the leaderboard was much similar to what early on day one two and three to what it is today and really it was a shallow water display from chris johnston almost the entire event we kind of watched going in the final day we thought chris johnson would put it away but guys like scott canterbury really throughout the field guys like micah frazier that deep water bite almost got better as the tournament went along seemingly yeah and you got to think shane hugh was doing great right there with him in that shallow area it's hard to make that divided a lot of times yes go ahead well chris johnson went into the final day with the lead it was really uh his to win or lose at that point catching incredibly looking at a lot of them spawning fish this late in the year different conditions from this year really interesting to see how many fish were up shallow in that tournament for chris johnston but as you say ronnie moore dividing them with another angler did not help him out micah frazier all through the tournament the guy who was catching the numbers every day each and every day he held sir 20 pounds right there abouts each and every the first three days but he turned on the jets on day number four exactly right fishing around ogdensburg and he said this time around though look i'm gonna make my my way to the area i won i'm not sure if that will burn me but this time around he said fish way way more scattered out from micah fraser in that final day he caught a 5-14 told me that 98 of his fish were in the canadian waters that are off limits this year so he's said i'll just find another area i hope that holds the big fivers that was the first win for the angler from noonan georgia coming into his own in 2019 it's 20 20 this time exceed last year's winning weight this one or no what say you tommy i say no i say no because as you pointed out i i think others have mentioned they're not as fed up big weight wise these smallmouth some of them are are done with their spawning time i go yes i go yes i think so as well yes take a look at 10th place buddy gross sticking with the largemouth got to see one earlier a very unique landing here from buddy gross buddy gross making the comment look i'm staying near the boat ramp because this is my first time here and i know nothing about this body of water i ain't gonna get him in fact careful really this is awful forget it made me nervous my dad gum arms ain't long enough not a giant we'll take him that was just a few minutes ago buddy providing his own commentary for as you say an unusual landing of a big large mouth bam we're back alive now again good one right there for buddy gross just take much water here we've been catching them out of more water we doing that digging in that stuff come here i don't think that is a good place for anything stay on there stay on there come here come here [Applause] that's what i'm talking about ain't good he swallowed it good at all he pulled a lot last fish got him in the top 10 and this one will call a one one and a half pounder zay we mentioned is a guy who doesn't even know anything about this place this might be a good way to save some points for him being in the top five in the angler of the year and one of the things i said about this largemouth fishery a lot of our friends guys like pete gluck from the bass university know this too boy you get cloud cover on this body of water those largemouth will get in inches of water all day long yeah with buddy grill we are watching a guy in the throes of one of the greatest rookie seasons we have ever seen here the vast master elite series trying to get it done maybe get the win done right here well we are so happy to bring all of our team in in this first couple of hours of coverage dave mercer from canada just across the border he's our stalwart he's our guy in charge of the weigh-ins every event and a guy we look for for knowledge on this particular body of water and so many other places dave what have you got for us where are you well i'm with a guy that a lot of people are probably asking questions about right now and that is brandon palnick and everybody you know thinking he's going to be out in the lake right well he did not make the run to the lake we're only about six miles from takeoff obviously heading towards the lake and he's having kind of a tough day and when i talk to him about it you know what he feels is happening and it happens a lot of times here on this body of water is when you get the river running one way and you get the wind blowing the other direction that river bike can be really really difficult and right now he's he's having kind of a tougher day i asked him straight up the question that everybody wants to ask is one no lake and he just said uh he's kind of kicking himself he said i should i should have went to the lake he said i should have known better you know the way that he said i had my best day in pre-fish here in the river so i stuck with the river but i should have known with the current going the same direction as the wind uh he generally is a lot tougher in the river and we're gonna have to watch and see how it works out but one of the things we talked about this morning having that extra time gives these guys an opportunity to recover and not take a look here on the same as we look year after have a little trouble here and dave if if you do decide to go all in on the lake i mean is that an all-day commitment you will have more time to fish as you pointed out since since we're going out of where we're going from but is it an all-day commitment or can you somehow factor your bets and get some river fishing in well i think that's really the that's really the the biggest difference is it is in the past it was an all-day commitment but i believe now with running it out of clayton they have the opportunity to run out there to the lake or to stop on the river i mean right now it's it's not even 10 o'clock i mean brandon paulnet could still pick up stakes run to the lake and get it done as we saw you know the last time he won here literally had what an hour and a half to two hours of fishing time it doesn't take long out there and and is so whether you're whether you're making the run starting in the river and then going to the lake or going to lake come back it's going to give you time to right the ship dave thanks for the report on brandon pauling a lot of people following him through this because of his great win on the lake in 2013. dave mercer our our bassmaster mc who if you fish for largemouth here everybody knowing smallmouth win dave will beat you down on the stage if you weigh a large mouth in i remember that last year so you've got that to deal with this i'm going to be honest with you i'm not going to make fun of buddy gross though to his face he's got the check to prove that he can make his own decisions at the moment yeah he's he's always making the dream come true right here you got to interview uh brandon speaking to brandon uh here in the studio a week before and relive that 2013 uh he probably regrets that i asked him to do that because at the point that at the time that i asked him to relive his 2013 win out in the lake the lake was off limits to the anglers and then a few days later they're like oh the lake's in play and it's like oh we just gave away all his secrets so and if you're just tuning in to our broadcast this is a you know the first time in several years that the the lake ontario has been open number one as you said ronnie throughout practice when these guys were pre-fishing they had three three and a half days to pre-fish two of those days it blew 15 to 30 miles an hour that is one of the roughest bodies of water on earth i mean it's a great lake for a reason but that certain section where that current funnels into the saint lawrence river is brutal it is brutal and by sunday by championship sunday we're supposed to see those the the winds come and when they when they comes out look it's not bad like out of the north or the northeast or the east it's when it comes out of the southwest and has 400 miles to build tommy sanders you've been out there with me we've seen days wiped out many times it makes baby cry yes it does for a long to profoundly cry and what it also does is if you are it affects the river as well even though it funnels down that current gets even stronger in that direction whereas it's the opposite today with mercer he was saying the wind's coming the other way against the current it slows it it makes those things different and and it would maybe help the lake you know the other person chris johnston's brother corey has lived out in that lake today and he has lived in areas that notoriously have played in a big way to me he is the x factor right now in our field especially of guys that we're covering let's go out to that last year's champion 29 2019 champion and we just saw recapped there michael raising another drift yeah we're uh we kind of started in one area this morning and caught a few i actually have probably caught a limit by now i've got four in the live well but i've thrown back some smaller ones and one that was bleeding um i really want to put a little one in there it's just kind of pointless but we ran up to a different area and uh running some waypoints where i got some bites in practice and just stuff that's historically good over the years and i'm just dragging a ned uh dinger on a jig head across some of these shoals looks just like a little goby it's pretty effective method here on the river so that's that's pretty much what i'm going to do all day whether i catch them or not i just uh i know that thing catches them if you get in front of enough fish usually you get the bites you need so that's what we're doing and just trying to get some bites right now it's kind of slow so far micah frazier again uh his story from last year was running for 10th place on the final day all the way to capture the victory and the suit said in one of your articles coming from tenth to first is is all the rage right coming to trend we've seen it more than one time it's very dramatic uh those special drifts uh just really perfectly done by michael frazier in that final day made it happen for him and we've covered in the better side of like 3 000 bass tournaments together it is was so rare to see a guy in 10th place come up to win a tournament jamie hartman late gunnersville last year we were in studio virtually not even watching jamie hartman comes back for the win there and i can't explain why it's happened so much in the last three years of the last seven elite events not counting the classic thing from tenth to first when you go to those places that have big bass and you're in content you're just in striking distance that's the deal when there's a when you're on a lake like you follow like buddy gross right here where's 27 pounds is a possibility that's where it really gets dangerous anybody in the top 10 can bust a bag like that fraser explained to me yeah it's just uh you know ninth inning home run he says that's why it's a four day event well buddy gross again 27-11 is still staggering we were all just asking ourselves what did we just see that final day of our most recent tournament there on lake people let's take you out to buddy gross again we've been spending some good time with buddy croats here the last 30 minutes or so he's been catching the largemouth it looks like it might too boy that just looks like frog water right there doesn't it ronnie moore it does indeed like in college i drank some frog water but he's got him right where he wants him he's in tenth place right now one thing you were saying zona you're not going to see a lot of anglers in your areas no company but in the afternoons you might see those those lines going through the grass those frog lines are oh yeah knowing that people have been there it'll almost look like a pike i hope it ain't it ain't it ain't big big but it'll cool oh come here feet i can't get him in the boat yeah that's why and i guarantee you he is fishing for largemouth right now that have not seen a lure all summer long guarantee you but he's got a pound and a half in the boat so that one will probably go in the box we have seen so far today [Music] and traditionally the majority of the tournaments that we cover here on the st lawrence river as the day goes on usually it's hard to say seeing how many fish catches we've seen so far the fight actually gets better we're counting on it that would be the perfect scenario we have seen so much we should be so thankful for all the great fish catches we've seen so far today there it is reflected in our unofficial leaderboard right there with chris johnston right on top clark wendlandt now busted the twenty one just barely that is very impressive this early on on day number one buddy gross now joining into the top ten along with robbie latusso tyler event a couple of louisiana anglers we've got quite a cross-section of america doing well on the st lawrence we'll take a break be right back the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury [Music] while i travel the country on the bassmaster elite series i simply can't let the weather be the reason i don't win a hundred thousand dollars [Music] that's why i use afco clothing to keep me warm dry and protected from whatever mother nature wants to throw of me my season depends on it my career depends on it any fish any water at mercury we invested thousands of hours of engineering manpower so you can enjoy hours and hours of untapped horsepower introducing the all-new v6 mercury pro xs light quick efficient mercury go boldly at mercury there are no limits to what we'll do to make sure you have no limits either introducing the all-new v8 mercury pro xs light quick efficient mercury go boldly it's been said that a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work getting you to that fishing spot is key and bully dog gets your truck road ready no matter where we give you the horsepower and towing torque right when you need it we make getting there better make your ride a bully dog groundbreaking designs unsurpassed quality and unshakeable confidence welcome to the ranger z500 and z100 series leading the industry for over 50 years these rigs are custom crafted and loaded with more features and advantages to deliver the ultimate ownership experience the legendary ranger z series unleash next level performance mercury go boldly you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury major league baseball opening night is tonight on espn and tomorrow we'll have three more games the openers for these teams back-to-back cy young award winner jacob degrom starts for the mets against the braves that's at four eastern right after that that great great rivalry the brewers taking on the cubs at wrigley and then the nightcap mike trout and the angels squaring off against the oakland a's and you can watch of course all three games also on the espn app opening night a day for celebration a day for rejoicing that's for sure listen i would go to white sox games to watch baseball i would go to cubs games to party okay all right okay who does it good plan right there who's got the best plan going so far today it's that man on the left chris johnston but not too far back we find derrick hudnall from baton rouge louisiana derek hudnall coming up here to the saint lawrence and derek thanks for spending a little time with us on our b w trailer hitches on the line and tell us are you are you surprised are you are are you not surprised at all is this thing going according to planned or have there been some pleasant things happening today that you did not expect uh very pleasant for sure um this was just a spot that very inconspicuous that has a little current break to it and i caught a big one in practice and i made several drifts on it uh in practice park some fish but i couldn't get them to eat it you know i couldn't get another bite on it but the only reason i started here is because i knew there were multiples this year um you know i spent a day down in this area and i think i only got eight bites the entire day but they were the right size i had one pretty good day in practice so i pulled up here this morning and there was a really big school sitting on top of the show and uh full of two pounders and two and a half's and i don't know how many suckers that i caught i got one right now let's watch derrick here see if we can put this one in the boat as well hudnell last year lost like a six and a half pounder right at the boat and and fell in the water as well i know he probably doesn't like me saying that but he uh he said he learned a lot on his first new york swing for the elites up there last year keep his balance he had that monster cayuga the eighth pound biggest new york fish we've had in an elite series bassmaster event oh he's one of those louisiana guys like you mentioned that tested himself in the opens he could have fished just the centrals or just the southern's back in the day but he used to go and fish the northerns just to get a taste of new york prepping for the day he qualified for the elites and now that he's here he fished last year in the northern swing fishing this year we saw him at saint claire show out after a few days of competition hudnall's getting his bearings for sure up north and i think that's going to help him going forward and it's just a lot more comfortable having some time under your belt on on water like this not having grown up you know fishing for smallmouth it's a different world for sure derrick in his second year on the bassmaster elite series we got to know him at the the classic in knoxville a couple of years ago you know scott canterbury really slow day so far and and said this was his toughest practice ever as being a bass master well last year he came up here without ever being here before and and got a third place finished took the aoi lead and magazine at home and i'd like to know clark wendlandt has taken the lead and brock mosley called again with a four and a half pounders in third place you know one of the things that went on here last year there was a four mile stretch basically from call it morristown really around the ogdensburg bridge okay that stretch of this river just had better quality over the rest of the river and i'm going to tell you right now we're seeing this stretch of the river really south of wolf island around that carlton island area that just has that better than average sized bass at least from what we're seeing throughout the rest of the st lawrence river so far you're right every every angler since 2013 has credited landing in the right place on this river to uh to unlocking the victory we're going up to the other end of the river right here we are picking up with gerald swindle that bmw trailer hitches on the line has been great two fish catches with both guys we've seen brock mosley and erica good point prince climbing into the top 10. [Music] i will say i've watched basically every minute of bass fishing possible over the last few years and this is a stretch or an area that he did well on his angler of the year exactly all right the two years ago but he's five yeah i went top 10 up here and 17. yeah and i think he was top 12 in 2013 as well the first year i think one of those years for 2013 yeah that's five it's about two pounds but that ain't much why didn't that old bigon have it like that wearing like a set of earrings just twisted up in that face we got three angler of the year titles representing those those two boxes right there last year's aoy scott canterbury yeah i was going to give him two and quite a fat but you know two-time aoy bassmasters you know what's ready next i got it marked on the bike angle of the year title again for the most consistent performance throughout an entire regular season that was scott canterbury season right there started off on the saint john's river and just never looked back one little bump in the road and that was it for him he just plowed him exactly right yeah and and he caught him on lakes he was supposed to but we really kept our eyes on him the more that we went north when we got to st lawrence cayuga and then especially saint claire that's when scott canavery showed us that he was one of the most versatile anglers on the bass master elite series and surprisingly the only hiccup was on a lake that we thought he'd crush him being lake fork texas well a slow day so far for scott canterbury that's got to be concerning for him because he's trying to do something that is extremely rare the world of the elite series and that's go back to back with angler of the year that's the way the points set as we started today only a four-point lead over buddy graham i think this tournament you are going to see the biggest juggling on the angler of the year leaderboard that we will see the entire season this tournament gonna change every day then you're saying well it's certainly looking to change the way things are are setting up right now matt airy hartman cook and all the rest giving chase right now but scott canterbury for now your leader will take a break and be back on bassmaster live the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury [Music] what do a taco and a taco truck have in common nothing if you want to play move in tacoma your time on the water is precious you return season after season to make unforgettable memories fight a few fish reconnect with friends and re-center yourself if you count on having this time you need an outboard you can count on to power it that's why boaters stay with yamaha for the long run for life they know reliability starts here pre-collision system standard on the 2020 tacoma so you can go from one epic playground to the next if you want to play move it tacoma so [Music] [Music] you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury yeah bringing you bassmaster live from the site one bassmaster elite on the saint lawrence river clayton new york is our fantastic host city this time around we're on day one of four days of competition rules of the game are as follows we've got a full field of 86 anglers fishing today and tomorrow will make the cut after two days of fishing down to 40 anglers and then on the final day only 10 on championship sunday 10 with a chance at the big big trophy and that's a very very important thing a win during the regular season and over to the screen of knowledge and we've got dual captains here at the screen so what do we got for you guys i wanted to bring you in for a little bit of afco taste the bait and it's not necessarily the specific baits that the anglers are using out of the water but the forage and the reason they're using those baits and that's something you mentioned an invasive species which invasive sounds bad but it's not always a negative with with the lakes like this exactly right it was really the perfect storm back in the mid 90s before prior to the mid 90s you fish really in the river for a large mouth like we're seeing buddy gross do today or you went to the lake for smallmouth and that traditionally was how every every single tournament would transpire but in the mid 90s zebra mussels and this little dude right here the goby um they they came into the saint lawrence river through the bilge you know the bilge systems on the freighters that would come in off the ocean really from other countries and when this little guy came into the st lawrence river here's basically what happened um he multiplied in a very very big way he doesn't he looks big on the screen but they don't grow very big we've seen them up to about maybe 12 ounces to a pound but they are like a cheese stick for a small mouth and if you just literally leave live on cheese sticks you're gonna get big and you saw the smallmouth in this body of water go from an average to about two pounds to four to five to six pounds uh and the other side he's just a cute little fella and that's what guys are using little baits um that look just like go he's like he looks almost like an ewok that swims if you look at it they're like for the people who fish in the south they're they're like crawfish even though there are crawfish in the st lawrence but those guys are just bottom feeders and a guy like jeff gustafson who has uh an underwater camera you can use in the elite practice saw thousands of them on spots and really when they multiply it's astronomical there's just food everywhere for a small mouth but when zebra mussels came into the st lawrence river it gave smallmouth great eyesight and a small mouth is a sight feeder basically he's a sight feeder now with an enormous buffet to just eat and eat and eat that dude right there is basically what totally transpired it it made the saint lawrence what it is today that's your afco taste debate whether you're actually talking about the gobi or baits that look like gobies that's going to be the key this week yeah the little bitty fish that changed this this body of water in a big way a great way if you talk to any smallmouth bass angler right there let's take a look at our humminbird lay of the lake we're flying over lake ontario there as it's pointing toward the north and the east of course all the water that comes through the great lakes flows through lake ontario and flows through that body of water right there the saint lawrence river you can't we don't do do justice for the size the power of the water flowing through this when we look at the pictures but it is current to the max gobies make me so excited i can't speak english anymore well they make them really they look like a little baby zackers you know what i mean really throughout morristown and ogdensburg you see jeff gustafson really fishing a lot of the same areas that we saw him last year all the way up to i believe that's gerald swindle making one of the longest runs he and i believe seth fighter making a long run almost all the way to messina new york a lot of what we just talked about there made zero sense but it sounded very very cool no it made perfect sense i mean that was that's illegal to use gobi live live bait but but really though listen not just here in new york the entire great lake system and any tributary i live in michigan any connecting waterway that zebra mussels and gobi have got into i was talking to my father about this you see the population of bass the size of them absolutely explode with those two combinations when you give fish 20 20 vision and you give fish an all-you-can-eat buffet it is staggering how fast that their size explodes like literally two to three to four years people from the southeast can relate they've seen species like the blue black herring come in and provide a similar buffet for the bass down there and and have a good effect on the bass fishing here we have gross canterbury frazier and jeff gustavsson i haven't moved into the top 20. ah well i'm not lighting it up but we're you know we're got one big one and a couple medium ones so could be worse i've got i'm i'm back on my starting spot here there was just a lot of fish here the other day so i you know and i made a couple passes and i caught a couple but um doing one more drive-by before i start sort of heading back back east but or west rather and uh you know i've wasted a little time sort of on my shallow campaign which i was a little bit afraid wasn't going to be good with all these clouds and it wasn't so uh after this this stop i'm gonna get get on some main main river humps and fish a little bit deeper and i've got quite a few places that had fish on them so i'm you know i'm pretty feel pretty good that i'll be able to catch a few yeah i got lots of time trying to catch big ones so getting too many rods out oh man all the three i've caught i've caught on a drop shot and uh but pretty much using that i'm using a little homemade marabou jig right now that's kind of my my hot shallow bait and then throwing a ned rig quite a bit as well so yeah other than this hair jig is just kind of a little after dinner mint kind of thing it's just a small subtle little you know i'm not really letting it hit the bottom and just sort of floating it around in the shallow stuff and it's very finesse very subtle but otherwise everything else i'm using on the bottom imitating the gobies and that's that's what these things are really keyed in on eating and there's a ton of them down there you're constantly getting like backpack pack pack all the time when you're when you're dragging out here okay jeff gustafsson 36 years old currently 38th standing bassmaster angler of the year stats the still young season you think about it but you think our canadian anglers would really like to put down a a good high finish here to sort of set the table for a good finish at the end of the year because those aoy points determine whether you go to the classic the world championship or not i think our canadian emcee really wants to see that he tends to get fired up when the canadian anglers rise to the top all right i know what you mean there's our th marine weather today right now you can see cloudy wind coming out of the south four miles an hour very agreeable temperatures high 78 low of 63. much warmer water according to you and davey yeah some of the warrant we know we talked to a lot of local guys and we have fished up there a ton some of the warmest water a lot of guys have ever seen this time of year it's been 90 to 100 from wisconsin all the way up to vermont for the last few weeks one thing that's different about this year compared to last year or normal years is like you said tommy this is only our third elite series points event of the season normally these guys who are from up north have to survive four or five southern events before we go up north this year if they've already struggled they need to get they need to get it done now because we will spend the second half of the year back down south when it is tougher and those guys are never down there they're always back home you know as winter approaches but all the southern anglers will probably have somewhat of an advantage during the tougher time in the summer and the southern guys are just wanting to hold serve going up north here so they can finish at home we are getting some social media questions on the gobi if they have teeth if they're uh angry fish if they bite they're not they're actually quite friendly uh docile yeah teddy bear they're they're pet worthy we're not promoting that but there's a goby in hawaii that can climb up a 350 foot cliff straight up as long as there's a trick of water i just saw it yesterday really yeah this was creepy with its mouth it was suctioning onto the rock wall climbing up to get to the top of the street a brand of gobi that's a horse facial species of gobi okay not this kind of girl check that out these will will cover 100 and a square yard of of uh bottom water drop calling tall tail i'm calling you no water on that oh i researched the gobi that was creepy start running clark wendlandt is now overtaking the lead by four whole ounces unofficially ahead of chris johnston bronco mosley having a great day he from louisiana derek hudnville brock mosley from mississippi such a great breakdown a lot more changes on the way we'll take our break and be right back the site won bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury groundbreaking designs unsurpassed quality and unshakeable confidence welcome to the ranger z500 and z100 series leading the industry for over 50 years these rigs are custom crafted and loaded with more features and advantages to deliver the ultimate ownership experience the legendary ranger z series unleash next level performance mercury go boldly [Music] ashley the native son gets it done shortly back to back domination [Applause] fish and win with skeeter real money fish out of your skeeter boat win a skeeter approved contingency paying event and you could add 5 000 to your winnings just enter fish and win it's that easy rules and conditions apply visit skeeterboats.com and click the real money logo to register and learn more or visit your local skeeter dealer fish win get paid up to five thousand dollars go to skeeterboats.com and see why now is the best time to interface and win with skeeter real money [Music] the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is brought to you by [Music] hummingbird [Music] mercury [Music] minn kota and by talon so much fun to bring you live bass fishing on this thursday in july the of course the third stop of the season for the bassmaster elite series we're going to go all the way to noon eastern time we'll take our break in the middle of the day that'll be for one hour we'll keep we'll keep the fish in they'll be fishing we'll be watching we'll be rolling tape and we come back at 1pm for the final two hours taking you all the way to three eastern time that's when weigh-in is set to start clayton new york which is going to be our host city this time around can't wait to take you there and see who's uh who's on top and things have been changing at the top of the leaderboard as we go on today chris johnston took the early lead and a really profound lead which lasted for oh an hour and a half two hours or so but he has been surpassed by clark wendlandt let's take you out to live now general swindle former angler of the year two times left it right marked it so there's the two marks there's where it starts there's where i marked the fish at a minute ago this should be the side on this far side to the right so i'm going to watch it come up right here should start to see the road it does have fish on it so that's promising i ain't fished this since the last time was here this is a place that i don't practice this thing runs in an angle you can see it just where it sticks out there there's a fish right there you should be able to see some rock right here i'm gonna mark it on this corner and fish over across it starting to come up a little bit right there and there's the beginning of it right there so you can mark it there and then i want to i want to do this i want to go over to my upper screen and you can see that rough place right there i want to mark that also so now look at the fish on it it's in big dots now if i don't screw this up we'll just catch some and i don't plan on screwing this up that's our lay of the lake no i'm sorry lake that's our unlock the lake unlock the lake there uh electronics wizardry by gerald swindle and really watching gerald swindle it's frightening that if his shoes matched his sonar color yeah that is an old road bet if you get on if you get on any google earth you could see that road bed that stretches on the canadian side it actually comes into the u.s side where gerald swindle is uh and and he was marking that rough spot of that old road bed and then you saw the little dots okay those dots on the bottom of the fish relating to that road bed and when he'd scroll over i always try to get behind the road just sit right behind it and throw a pair and just drift right back over and he just puts a waypoint where he can go over that exact spot of the road see what's weird is i fish this place every year i always catch fish here some years they big some years they're two pounders you just never know and it's a great yamaha unlock the lake and after years and years of fishing this stuff you just have some places that well just some places i just don't practice you know like you just no fish get there i would much rather spend my time looking for new fish than fishing over places that are no has fish on it saying that's a good yamaha and like to unlock the lake because he grabbed to find those rocks to find the fish sometimes you don't have to do that but when you're drifting like he is in the river where the current's going to flow through you have to go get ahead of them and control yourself as you float down through them whereas people on the lake like corey johnston a lot less current impact can just drop straight down on them 22 down gerald swindle one of the most uh high profile flamboyant characters let's say and high achieving high functioning characters in the world of bass fishing for low these many years now now living in the gunnersville alabama area 275 tournaments 54 of which he has finished in the top ten grinder oh no doubt well known as a grinder look at those two angler of the year championships that is the most impressive part of his whole resume right there 04 and 2016 as well coming back after those many years to get it done that's a hard thing to do and we've covered a lot of not tournaments really seasons that swindle has done a lot in events with a little not being on a lot and maximizing that in fact those two angler of the year seasons we got to see that oh yeah one thing with him it's always he got better each event it was or each day of the event he would start out in 25th 26th work up to 15th make it into the top 10 going into the finals and then finish up his time got a hit to get the bait right here on the bottom it's got canterbury still with just two fish that's kind of hard to believe very very surprising who was you he told you ronnie you can put me on camera if you can find me a place where i can catch 20 pounds right that's what he told you he did not have high hopes for today he's pulled things out of the fire all last season to win the angler of the year he was very very concerned yesterday talking to him day one here he said i'm not sure i can catch a limit scott canterbury fishing exactly where we covered him last year i figured i might have just re-lined it but there ain't no boats on us you might be right it might be all burning gosh did you see swindle's graph right there there was fish all over on the bottom right there he set the hook and missed missed one reel it all the way up and then drop back down and that was when his graph like loaded up so he doesn't i mean i drifted a long ways now to get a bite and because it's cloudy i'm going to give them a shot not even saw the light on there swindle trying to get that drift just right it's got the electronic components all in place and knows what it needs to do of course the drift was such an important component of micah frazier's win last year just again and again doing that back off of it a little bit that productive drift is what obviously in the end got him the win take it back to 2019 through the tournament michael frazier doing well enough doing well enough to make it into the top ten in the tenth place by about three or four ounces look what he did on the final day saved the best for last still doing that same thing catching numbers doing that trip and micah frazier was one of the anglers that said he just felt that there was a better than average smallmouth in this three-mile stretch and really a lot of our leaders were in that three-mile stretch and it's kind of what we're seeing transpire today closer to the lake this time around very very close so many times before before he got the winning combination to the delight the crowd in waddington new york we'll miss that big crowd this week we can't have crowds because well everyone knows why we can't have crowds this week today micah will miss him and we'll miss seeing him as well just one of the best stops no doubt in the world for bass fishing tournaments love going to waddington always a great event there's a career stats for a 32 year old micah frazier from noonan in the atlanta area said he loves coming up here for the for the cool weather for the beauty the the natural beauty and of course all the guys are here for the great fishing seven top tens of his career last year's win here on the st lawrence big part of the crown right there for young micah frazier you sit there and catch three or four little ones and then little guy [Music] so well we didn't see many scenes like that with scott canterbury last year at all impacts no i know at all would be the better way to put it yeah absolutely clark wendlandt on top there are guys catching the good ones out there and you can see them at the top of the leaderboard right there down through spot number five chad morgan taylor doing very very well on this day plenty more fishing on the way though our morning session still holds more than an hour's worth of great st lawrence small mouth and largemouth fishing you take a break real quick right now though and come back and see in a minute the dewalt fast master elite at lake eufaula is being brought to you live by minn kota [Music] this reel allows you to cover more water make more casts giving you more opportunities to catch more fish the new revo rocket abu garcia for life introducing the bashu tv app get the most out of your bashu tv subscription and learn on the go with the bashu tv app unlimited access to 700 plus training videos multiple new releases each week including seminars on water videos live shows interviews and other original content the bashu tv app never stop learning i'm pro anchor andy montgomery i've been making my living with strike king products for a long time so when they show me the new tour grade line i was all in i knew i could trust it what i didn't know was how easy it was to use with the spooling tool and the prepaid envelope to recycle your old line included in every single box not only is it the best line on the market it gives you the easiest fishing experience possible find out more at strikeking.com you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury [Music] back on the saint lawrence third stop of the year for the bassmaster elite series took us a good long while to get the season restarted after the first event for obvious reasons and hey hats off to all the people who've worked so hard to make it happen here in new york and this week two events back to back next week we're going to be at champlain there's your leaderboard fast track has clark wendlandt we're trying to locate for you right now in the lead just a few ounces ahead of chris johnston chris has put on a show for us today catching some big really giant smallmouth to start our day to start our bassmaster live showing we look forward to plenty more of that chris out there not too far from his brother corey johnston who was uh all in on lake ontario corey johnson had a tough time of it last i got to watch the entire day one of corey johnston last year 2019 bassmaster elite series here on the st lawrence river where he i now look this is something you don't see every day the trolling motor was fine um but evidently the gentleman that corey had to actually borrow that boat right there there i am helping oh it was um i had never seen a day like this uh he had to borrow this boat right here and here was the worst part he caught a huge bag of smallmouth in front of us and then came to the weigh-in late which could have cost him not only winning this tournament but the angler of the year i had never watched a day one i've never watched a day of a bass tournament where everything went so drastically wrong than right and then wrong again and we came in late because of unfamiliarity with the borrowed vote right correct yeah it had the wrong time zone right he had to reset the graph so there was no previous waiver there struggling man this side of the river's got my number that's for sure all uh all my deep fish were gone so i'm just running some shallow stuff here and kind of working my way back we will run into some i know we will it's just whether they're gonna be threes or fours or fives but we got lots of time left keep grinding away here seeing the odd one but nothing big enough to really stop on there's a group of four or five of them in here yesterday a few four pounders mixed in so hoping they're gonna be around here but you see chris johnson for you chris johnston has moved into lake ontario a lot of history from where cory's at right there from grenadier island to the mouth of shemo bay i've followed you around out here a little bit and at this time of year normally not unusual to see see them packed up and cruising around but here's a different year you have to have that sunlight that sunlight number one it lets them feed better but but a lot of the smallmouth that cory's after a lot of them get on very very isolated giant giant boulders you've seen those boulders oh yes a little bit of sunlight coming through there so maybe that's gonna change things for some of our anglers sun just helps see these fish it's you know there there's light spots mixed in with dark rock and and it's really really hard to see these fish on a good day and then we get the sun it kind of makes them stand out more and in the sun also makes them just come up shallower they like that sun that's what they want to they want to be doing being up shallow with the sun when it's calm i don't know if we've got enough of it today or not couple more minutes we're gonna get out of here but it's rare to see that lake that calm that does not happen very often into that group from yesterday there's some some pretty good ones rory johnston definitely struggling brother chris with a big big morning having a little bit tough service way out in the lake where chris johnston is at right now boy you want to see that shallow thing happen that is a that is a great stretch that cory's on right there for the shallow water smallmouth on lake ontario give this another five minutes and then we're gonna make one more little stop and then we're gonna go where i know i can catch some three and a half's and at least get a half decent limit in the boat and go hunting for a couple big ones do you think it's time well time to take a look at somebody catching some big ones is that that's kind of time you're talking about means yeah how about early and often for the power pole replay of the day all eyes were on the johnston brothers coming here especially going off of their history the last really decade to decade and a half here on lake ontario on the st lawrence river well one of the johnston brothers lived up to that early this morning in the mouth of the st lawrence river where connects into lake ontario and here's the best way to put it chris johnston out fished everybody within 50 feet of his boat davey heights said it was a display to watch him lay a beat down on the field that a lot of the field had their eyes on chris johnson earlier today that is the power pole replay of the day and you get to see chris johnston with what we would call a 22 to probably 23 pound bag unofficially we have them right around 21 pounds managing that area getting out of there and kind of kind of leaving that primary area to the anglers that watched him catch him you are the power pole replay of the day chris johnston boy he is way out there too one of those guys who was witness to that uh said to the aforementioned beat down was greg de palma who left the area also clifford perch is the only one who remains there and he's he has zero on bass track clifford perch does but he has caught a couple good ones right where greg tacoma chris johnson were where they were all sharing greg de palma with a couple good ones earlier today and we got to see on that map right there that he has made his way to that kind of that morristown area where we got to cover him last year baby are you tired out either oh yeah incorrect z on the awesome about he has popped in the back check with three for 13. wow okay see them down there greg depalma southern new jersey a lot of good fishermen from that area delaware river susquehanna river excellent bass anglers down there great i'm a call definitely among them we know we have a lot of viewers today wanting to see some shallow water fishing one of those anglers very close to our takeoff and clayton buddy gross buddy grow said he will stay within three miles of the french creek marina takeoff very solid morning for buddy gross targeting largemouth and one of the anglers and said look i got to see a lot of four to five pound largemouth got to show us a few of those this morning there's a blog written that he said he couldn't figure out the small mouth so you start to get a little scared because you see how good they've caught them in past years and you don't know if you're just not around them or if it is tougher for the field a lot of guys have spooked themselves with that buddy gross did tell us that he caught a couple five to six pound small mouth in practice in fact he's caught one of them every single day he just didn't catch numbers i'm curious to see right after we come back from our midday break if he transitions and kind of gets back out on that main river smallmouth yeah brock mosley who we saw shallow for largemouth earlier there's a photo in the blog that he was with a nice smallmouth right and he said he was gonna go smallmouth a little bit later on a combo platter may be the ticket to being in the top ten today day one of four days of fishing on the st lawrence they come with cheese sticks and uh yeah there you go buddy gross impressive largemouth work here on the st lawrence let's get over to jeff gustavson pretty impressive morning so far solid not a giant stringer yet yeah good one earlier today for jeff gustafson and as ron moore said a lot of these fish he literally saw on his aqua view camera and sent us some of the the screenshots of some of those small mouth on and really he's chasing him around a lot of the fish that he found this week has been with that camera and not his electronics oh gets your heart pumping i haven't seen this one yet but it's feels like a big one it came up right away and you wanted to jump so i'm pretty sure it's a bass but it's really digging and staying down there all right hopefully it's a boss this is his best fish of the day that we saw oh yeah that's a big one that's the kind we want nice that's the st lawrence river five pounder baby yes that's more like it that leads our phoenix boats big bass of the day at 5-1 nice good work there by jeff gustafson we've seen one or two on that ball gustafson hanging in the top 20 around the top 20 right there that would be his best finish if we were to end right now but we're a long way from that point clark winlet to texas the austin area on top with 21 and a half pounds chris johnson who we suspect may have pretty near that amount or more mosley hudnl morgan taylor and the rest we take a break and we come right back the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury at mercury we invested thousands of hours of engineering manpower so you can enjoy hours and hours of untapped horsepower introducing the all-new v6 mercury pro xs light quick efficient mercury go boldly at mercury there are no limits to what we'll do to make sure you have no limits either introducing the all-new v8 mercury pro xs light quick efficient mercury go boldly it's been said that a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work getting you to that fishing spot is key and bully dog gets your truck road ready no matter where we give you the horsepower and towing torque right when you need it we make getting there better make your ride a bully dog [Music] you don't know their names yet but you will when i'm on the road for work or for fun i always like to have a reliable generator around this open frame inverter from champion is ideal because it's lighter than a standard open frame generator and more affordable than a traditional inverter the remote start helps me start up the generator or shut it off without having to leave my camper it provides essential power for things like charging my boat batteries also makes life a lot more comfortable for myself and my family you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury day one of this big elite event big because of the importance of the fishery all the anglers look forward to this not just for a chance to win but just a chance to fish on this incredible incredible place the st florence river and now lake ontario as well we've got one more hour a little bit more than an hour left in our morning coverage we'll take a break and then come back at uh noon eastern time and take you all the way to three o'clock tomorrow we're going straight through it plowing straight through start at 8 a.m seven hours straight bass master live coverage of day two very important day moving day for these anglers either you make the cut or you don't tomorrow so very important in terms of points and money all of those things that sustain you keep you out here keep you a working bass fishing pro at the top level let's get out to corey johnston right now in lake ontario is going to give himself a little more time where he is and he's hooked up right now live not a big one but take them this is a three pounder the ones i seen here yesterday were four and a half for sure here cole corey johnston making comment that he's seen a lot of bigger smallmouth here yesterday you heard corey talk about that smallmouth wants son like corey does too we've watched him especially last year he wants to sight fish a lot of these fish that are up cruising getting a little more sun now it's been cloudy low hanging clouds all morning good keeper right there he knows he'll need bigger you have to know we have a a new leader tommy paul mueller's caught more than 25 pounds jumped to the paul mueller who's already won this year a very first stop the other day were big ones if that was a three about steve kennedy jumping into fifth place with almost 20 pounds staggering how fast when that sun just pops out how fast it starts to happen come on the other thing a lot of the local anglers here that fish here a lot and johnston's know this there's you've seen this tommy there's a lot of slate rock here okay that comes out and cracks and there will be a half mile long crack in that rock and those small mouth will run those cracks back and forth and a lot of times those cracks will it'll grow grass and almost make a little bitty highway for the smallmouth you see it all over the mouth of these bays maybe even a little better another keeper there for corey johnson had a fantastic season last year of course was tripped up here at the st lawrence river but boy look at that six top ten finishes he was in this race until the very end we got to st claire for the championship and man oh man i'm sure he could not keep the saint lawrence and what happened to him on the first two days out of his mind it was interesting we got to spend a little bit of time with him after the weigh-in on on day one last year and like we said we had never seen a competition day like that ever where your primary boat had mechanical issues then your borrowed boat was basically you were just you're falling to pieces is what was going on the world was exploding right yeah there was a lot of things we could not air from day one but but as time has gone on corey will have fun with that but it was a train wreck the entire day and he had a huge bag by the end of the day and just miscalculated with his gps and came to the way in late perfect storm of everything that would frustrate a tournament angler for sure trying to get ahead of this first way point where i marked all them on the sonar when the first come over right let's just go right around this corner there's not to find somebody buddy gross being true to his word not to an abundance of caution as far as traveling far on the st lawrence river has been his watchword and hasn't worked out too badly for him tell the truth like frasier doing his drift thing 10 pounds he knows he's got to have to up the size all the way through his limit here boy from that morris town at least what we've seen so far where we've had cameras really from morristown to just a little east of ogdensburg has been very very slow so far today watch out i'm gonna get right there watch out watch out [Music] the scoop and score other thing about that section of the river very clean bottom from morristown all the way to ogdensburg very clean you don't have a lot of that algae where your bait gets hung up here's the resume for micah frazier there atlanta area still early on in his career seven top tens though gotta win wins are hard to come by to have one that early on in your career is a huge boost in micah frazier remember finally the year 2019. i think we're seeing greg de palma right now in that morris town area where he caught him last year i think he left that carlton island area where he started with chris johnston earlier today fished a little vegetation last year did greg dupont got some good keeper largemouth out of it shipwrecks and other things yeah with the carolina rig and not a spinning rod it's got canterbury's got his limit in the boat took a while and they're all small nothing bigger than a pound and a half way different than last year hooked up it looks like he's got carolina rig again oh come on it's not a giant i couldn't tell how big it was but the way it was pulling that thing took off right up here not the kind of raptor i don't even think i got that one small one in there help steve kennedy now well he's one to watch aft really on his history on this river why do you say that because there's been many times where he said he felt that he was on or had hooked the winning fish in tournaments past and generally he's one of those anglers coming here that wants to be very very shallow yeah we've had a lot of developments in the last 30 minutes here on our leaderboard our fastrak leaderboard paul mueller with 25 plus has gone to the top of that lead that is an outstanding bag anywhere especially here yeah where did that come from he's our winner first event of the year down in florida on the st johns river mark winlett chris johnston now consigned to third place but just barely behind clark wendlandt big moves going on we'll take a break and be back on bassmaster live the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury your time on the water is precious you return season after season to make unforgettable memories fight a few fish reconnect with friends and re-center yourself if you count on having this time you need an outboard you can count on to power it that's why boaters stay with yamaha for the long run for life they know reliability starts here so [Music] [Music] chris lane brings the pain casey ashley the native son gets it done jordan back to back [Applause] domination you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury [Music] is there a better big time smallmouth bass fishery tournament qualified smallmouth bass fishery than this place than the st lawrence river especially when you add in the bonus of being able to fish on lake ontario it's going to be hard to find a better place than paul mueller has shown us a little bit about what's possible around here 25 pounds and 4 ounces is phenomenal to open up on a day like that boy if he can back that up in any way shape or form through the next three days paul mueller is going to be a hard guy to uh derail on his quest to win twice in the same year of course we had that happen to two anglers last year so certainly not outside the realm of possibility paul has won twice on the elite series the past couple of years last year and you're like frighteningly close to where we saw chris johnston oh you're right absolutely yes yes oh my goodness exactly right winning on lake lanier last year fishing very very deep catching giant spotted bass and i'll tell you what's been interesting following paul mueller like this is a tournament right here that you would expect him to do well deep clear water kind of like he's grown up fishing on candlewood that's a tournament i'm not gonna lie it was the tournament earlier this year i did not see coming just really took a contrary attitude to everyone else fishing the tournament everyone goes right he goes left this is deep under pads and it's just an incredible thing to put together but this is the kind of event that you would expect paul mueller if you look at the track record of smallmouth tournaments where you're like he's going to catch him paul mueller is going to catch him he's not been in the race in a lot of those big heavyweight smallmouth tournaments be interesting to hopefully catch up to him today to to get filled in on kind of what he's been doing of course at the end of the day we will know all will get his official weight and see if he is in fact the leader be hard to bet against right now to be the leader at the end of the first day cashed in at the end of last year at saint claire to make the classic he needed a good finish there and got the top five there great electronics guy overall we've seen those days gunnersville last year great day one 25 pounds or whatever keep working if i could have come here and caught him every drop i'd out there's another record on gunter's building yes pretty well known greg de palma hooked up live come on be the one that feels better they all pull here feels a little bit better on baby stay on that's a good one that's a good one oh come on come on big girls get up here come here oh yeah that's what i'm talking about that'll help whoo how's that one it's not a giant but that's a good one man that's what we're after right there good one right there for greg de palma and they're going to head back up towards he's towards ogden's first in morristown area with jeff gustafsson to dial us in on his electronics and exactly what he's looking for okay so you can kind of see these are just sort of scattered boulders you know off to my off to my right this the top of the screen is straight off the trolling motor so off to the this side we got a few boulders and i just kind of drifted over those and there's going to be more coming as we get closer to my waypoint here but but that just gives you a really good idea of where to cast and where to drag and where the fish are most likely to be i'm actually going to drop one over here not getting a real good look at his body we're getting the winds i mean there's not a lot of wind but it's kind of blowing against the current it's we really want it it's better if it blows from the west and pushes with the current and it just makes these drifts a lot more efficient and and i think the fish just are more active when the current's kind of pushing food by them and they seem to just be a lot lazier and harder to catch when it's when it's sort of still like it is today look at that mega 360 imaging right there what it does he's talking about those black spots basically that's an underwater radar where you're getting a look at individual boulders and that's exactly what he's fishing a lot of these fish will sit on the back sides of those boulders just to get out of that current gonna get from jeff gustafson out on the lake with chris johnston live out on lake ontario give us an idea ah come here gotcha wow there we go a little spell of bad luck there i got to do some calling here smallson's live well as a three pound ten ounce fish in the lead till about an hour and a quarter ago clark wendlandt took over and now he's been superseded by paul mueller who has according to bass track almost 25 and a half pounds before a couple of our alabama hopeful swindle in run canterbury some big ones where the cloud cover is hanging on up on the river the sunshine down on the lake again you're just picking up with us and you know this tournament the lake ontario has not been in the mix since 2013 but this year it is back in we're going out of clayton new york that's right just makes it work everything in that box will be checked out toughest day we've ever covered scott canterbury by far oh yeah by far it'd be like his team killer remember he struggle struggle struggled live ended and put it together in the last hour for him he would he would definitely need that to happen today and by the end of tomorrow again you have to be in the top 40 if you want to go on and fish the weekend 40 anglers on saturday down to 10 on sunday i think we just reached roughly the halfway point of the day for they they took off at about 6 45 eastern times local time yeah yeah so they're about four hours and 30 minutes into their day how many bags over 20 pounds today only five so far but oh far 12 12. versus 20 last year 25 last year 2051 yeah i'm gonna go close to 20 today you think so yeah i'd be with you i mean i wouldn't be i wouldn't be surprised with 20 it's just you don't know how i say the match last year wouldn't be surprised now i do think the biggest bag today the day one leader will be much bigger than the day one bag last year which was what i think 23 23 and change yeah yeah chris johnson i think johnston had 23 21 and 19 37 i believe 24 7 i'm sorry 24 7. yeah i think we have two bags at 24 plus yeah i think we'll have two at least two which man if we want to hit that hundred pound mark for smallmouth for four days which has never been done in a four day 20 fish event this will be a tough one yeah this will be a toughness it's gonna be that in st claire that i know everybody's keeping their eyes on st claire because of what it did in three days last year got close here in 2018 95 pounds three ounces had two official years of our of our five previous two of them have been over 90. three of them could have been pollonic one with 88 12 but with a two pound culling penalty he would have had 90 pounds his gross weight would have been 90 pounds 12 ounces [Music] boy chris johnston he had a lot in the live well right there yeah yeah yeah i think he's got like you say a little bit a little bit more than 21. i had like 22 or 23 pounds paul mueller though we got mark down for 25 25 and one-third pounds that's pretty strong on day number one clark wendlandt mosley hudnall and the rest of clayton new york and we will be back on the water after it's quick break the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury [Music] [Music] what do a taco and a taco truck have in common nothing if you want to play move in tacoma at mercury we invested thousands of hours of engineering manpower so you can enjoy hours and hours of untapped horsepower introducing the all-new v6 mercury pro xs light quick efficient mercury go boldly at mercury there are no limits to what we'll do to make sure you have no limits either introducing the all-new v8 mercury pro xs light quick efficient mercury go boldly groundbreaking designs unsurpassed quality and unshakeable confidence welcome to the ranger z500 and c100 series leading the industry for over 50 years these rigs are custom crafted and loaded with more features and advantages to deliver the ultimate ownership experience legendary ranger z series unleash next level performance mercury go boldly introducing the bash u tv app get the most out of your bashu tv subscription and learn on the go with the bashu tv app unlimited access to 700 plus training videos multiple new releases each week including seminars onward or videos live shows interviews and other original content the bashu tv app never stop [Music] learning pre-collision system standard on the 2020 tacoma so you can go from one epic playground to the next if you want to play you need a tacoma you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury hope you're enjoying all the fun at bassmaster live on this thursday hey fun for all coming on saturday the final july ufc fight night from where else fight island in abu dhabi fantastic look at that main event number one ranked middleweight contender robert whittaker taking an onslaught from the number five darren till that should be great main card starts at eight eastern five pacific for limbs get underway five eastern two pacific on espn espn deportes and of course the espn app i believe that is fight island right now no no no no it's in abundance you better bring the juice on sale is it true that you used to do mixed martial arts in in college that you you like to wrap it up a little bit you like that you like to get in the clinch don't you trained in the orient under several different masters at the orient express restaurant on on main street what hold on he's fat before it is my past i'll tell you about hook him right here please i don't think that's that ain't gonna help i got one small one in there like you know it's relatively about that size so gotta get him out of there four or five pounder i mean i'll take a six though and now you got it souvenir i'm just going to redo this setup real quick won't be safe than sorry retire the whole thing greg de palma hanging in there in the top 10 buddy gross solid in the top 20 for the past couple of hours buddy has predicted as by him he's going to stay fairly close to home base today and again sea legs from saint laurence river going there it was close he's done well great depalma solid day so far today great tournament here last we're doing a lot of carolina rigging and never carolina wow doing a lot of carolina rigging last year and this year and the one thing about it is you notice he does not have to fight them long very high probability that you're going to land them with a carolina rig here where you don't have to fight them in the current take a look at last year a lot of great footage from the breaking ball correct me if i'm wrong such i might be recently engaged yes that is what i pronounced so congratulations you said your last name okay gonna tie the knot i i would normally give the palma a hard time because he hadn't pulled the trigger yet and so i'm glad that he finally made that decision why would you give him a hard time they've been dating for 10 years no he did do a great event here at the st lawrence last year he actually started off great at the saint johnson we got a little peek at him last year as well in that slug fest but he's a northeast guy a chesapeake bay a delaware river guy just one of those guys that's made it through the opens all the divisions has has well traveled for being a second year pro thinking about tying the knot while he's tying the knob through that again yeah yeah so basically i'm tying a carolina rig right now you know for here i'm using 20 pound 100 high seas fluorocarbon main line i'm going down to a 15 pound i already tied the swivel on you guys see the swivel on here basically the swivel allows me to put a different size line on i'm going down to a 15 just to be a little more finesse you know the swivel also takes away from any kind of line twist but that baits down are just doing this so you get a lot of twists if you didn't have it on there uh hook wise i'm using a high abuse a three worm hook offset very strong hook giant barb that's why i love this hook super super sharp bait wise it's just you know pick your poison whatever you like to throw you know mostly um the other side of the coin is too so basically the rest of the carolina rig is going to be this setup right here i know a lot of guys do put a bobber stop down the bottom a bobber stop is a piece of plastic up here that basically stops your your weight from going up or down i put the bobber stop on top just because i don't want the weight going too far and sometimes you throw a cast that makes it tough besides that i'm just going to tie it on there you can see i'm using tungsten i got a one ounce tungsten weight the one ounce tungsten allows you to feel a lot more i know traditionally a lot of guys use brass brass does work well also but i just like tungsten got a black bead on there bead when it bangs on there makes a bunch of noise down in the water you know so not only does a small mouth see the bait but he also hears something coming so you know it's just like a one-two punch for me but the carolina rig is definitely a player as you can see it's about as concise as the sink you can get for breaking down something like a carolina rig actually just might tie that wrong you have to redo that i dropped the nut who looked at that first time today the sun's out feels good nice and warm well hats off to gray i mean doing well one year after the next uh a place where he's got so much tough tough competition greg de palma so far so good for 20 20. really covering him last year here basically just throwing a soft plastic craw crawdad trailer on the back three three bites in one drift the other thing that we said about that is a very high probability when you hook one with that that you're going to land him yeah we saw him catch one drop shot a little earlier rather lengthy wrestling stretched seven minutes long yeah yeah somebody grows kind of getting out in a little more small mouth looking water here he's been back water largemouth fishing all morning boy that shows you how much current is there watch how fast he is sliding down the river okay um golly that's a nice one that ain't big as what we want but that's a nice one i know he's bigger than that large mouth thingy i'm not feeding him for a few minutes that them he went straight to the bottom i don't like it quit it quit it just that's a big old fish good one right there for buddy gross when he said we got to talk about it earlier look i don't really know what i'm doing here with smallmouth but every day i've caught one or two big ones five to six pounders yeah he's got his good solid uh large mouth base he can expand his small mouth territory from there yeah man just like brock mosley said earlier today this might be his first year in the bassmaster elite series but overall he's been a pro for about four or five years and he has three major wins that's that shows you hey he might not have the the bank account money that it takes to to not be a rookie in our it's i think it's five hundred thousand dollars in career winning so he's a legitimate rookie contender all my small mouth places again this morning i just wasn't biting fortunately i got i was able to run up hit the largemouth that's pretty close so we went and got them i got a limit of them and now we're slowly culling but [Music] i'm still just catching low threes i ain't caught a begging yet so we need a we need a big and i'm like to weigh them on the next go around because they're getting pretty close now but uh just feels like smallmouth's time now there's a lot more on my screen than the last two passes and i don't know if they just pulled up off the bottom or if they've uh they've just showed up but we got some super strong current right here where i'm fishing it bottlenecks down and this is the only flat that don't have tons and tons of jagged rock on it it's just got one little stretch of it so it's pretty neat it's real slick got some scattered boulders on it and if i hit one of them boaters there's one laying behind it every time so we're gonna make a few more passes start running some other stuff and circle back around a little while buddy grows burning probably the least amount of gas than any other competitor in our field right now that maybe we've ever seen on this on this river before paul mueller the guy sitting on top right now chris johnston we've been with him a long time had that lead for a good time this morning mark wynwood right in the middle of it right there mosley destin de marion now has joined the top 10 cliff prince and down in florida also in that top ten so uh lots of movement as expected as predicted by all of our experts here and we'll have more to come when we come back the site one bassmaster elite of st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury i'm pro anchor andy montgomery i've been making my living with strike king products for a long time so when they showed me the new tour grave line i was all in i knew i could trust it what i didn't know was how easy it was to use with the spooling tool and the prepaid envelope to recycle your old line included in every single box not only is it the best line on the market it gives you the easiest fishing experience possible find out more at strikeking.com fish and win with skeeter real money fish out of your skeeter boat win a skeeter approved contingency paying event and you could add 5 000 to your winnings just enter fish and win it's that easy rules and conditions apply visit skeeterboats.com and click the real money logo to register and learn more or visit your local skeeter dealer fish win get paid up to five thousand dollars go to skeeterboats.com and see why now is the best time to interfish and win with skeeter real money [Music] this reel allows you to cover more water make more casts giving you more opportunities to catch more fish the new revo rocket abu garcia for life [Music] [Music] you're watching the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river being brought to you live by mercury hey here's something to put on your calendar that's next year 2021 the academy sports and outdoors bassmaster classic the world championship coming to fort worth and this place lake ray roberts there just to the north and east of fort worth noted big bass aunt is going to provide a great playing field to decide the world's champion there fort worth a fantastic town everybody's favorite western town gateway to the west got the brand new dickies arena perfect spot to hold this thing you really love it if you will take the time to make plans to get there you will not regret it fort worth is fantastic it's going to be one fantastic bassmaster classic all these guys working toward that end out there today they're thinking about the classic making some points getting exactly right get back out on lake ontario you see corey johnston near grenadier island chris johnston hooked up live [Music] oh there's a couple of them down there it feels like a good one it's definitely not a little one chris johnston actually got to send a send us a few screenshots of his graph of some of these schools he found out on lake ontario from 40 to 60 feet of water we're gonna find out here oh it's a big one oh god here we go this is the one we needed come on this is the one one of the better weather days that you're gonna get out on the lake with with this they're not even really waves this one has definitely got his attention he said he just needs two more big ones this may be one of the two that's a big one come on a little bit of a signal difficulty there but i'm gonna hang with it because this is oh yeah not quite as big as i thought but take them four pounder the old game of gods who pegged this one boy he has had a day put on a show for us but you couldn't probably start today without being in the boat with chris johnston based on what he did last year leading the first three days of the tournament he did not waste time getting going this morning exactly right fishing about two miles from the mouth of lake ontario with a giant to start the day yeah that is a good start he's been drop shotting a little soft plastics in about 30 to 55 feet of water the scary proposition for the rest of the field we talked about it at the beginning of our broadcast here on day number one is when chris johnston makes the comment oh yeah yeah i'm on them chris johnston fishing around three or four different competitors earlier today davey heights said he put on a display and basically just out fished him said chris johnson's got a lot of tricks up his sleeve where the other guys weren't getting bit we're gonna try to find out what those are because it looks like we're gonna be covering chris johnston on day two this is johnson from just across the border now in canada ontario peterborough ontario and lots lots of time spent on the water here all right and it's showing today gotcha there we go that's the one we just saw in catching but maybe a little bigger one than that said he needed two bigger ones to make the ideal bag for day number one but that's the way the bags that's not a bad looking and i'm gonna go with he has all of 22 10. okay that is what i'm gonna say that is absolutely unofficial right there but chris johnston with a stellar stellar morning fishing in the mouth of the saint lawrence river out into lake ontario [Music] i wonder if cory's going to ask him for a few of those spots that he shouldn't hit wow mr corey have done one thing through the course of this morning they've both made it down to where the sun is shining which seems to that's like a different body of water yeah it doesn't look like anything like the river stuff cory's got time he just called to 13 pounds he's up uh tied in 22nd sun stays out cory will be just fine wow you are absolutely watching one of the best number one is a smallmouth fisherman but this body of water being out on lake ontario absolutely one of the best out there it's a giant thing's hardly fighting oh this is the one we need this is a fiver all day oh why can't everyone do that the thing didn't fight the whole way up i had to have some energy that's a good one that was awesome dude that was awesome i was a little worried when he didn't use any energy and all of a sudden he's out the side of the boat he can only go up [Applause] five pounder man oh man can i see that i i've never seen a smallmouth completely jump in the boat three seconds into the battle this is unusual oh that is that's in contention for the power pole replay of the year right watch this he's not gonna go land him at the side about no i'm gonna get in right now that fight would have went another two minutes that's incredible oh is that cool the guy helped guide it in a little bit with the line there watch that wow that thing was all clear that is a high jump that is the uh i think the pole vault that's a good pole vaulter and a half so uh i'm gonna lay off him a little bit here and i think i'm just gonna i might go to the islands try and get one big one let's just hit or miss spots so we got a little time to play with now that was one of the wilder smallmouth i've caught so much fun out there chris johnston that's kind of maybe you know that's going to push him back into second place behind paul bueller unofficially all unofficial we get to the weigh-in coming up at three o'clock today gosh that was a cool fish gotcha oh it was really cool it's back to buddy gross [Music] hanging in the top 20 buddy getting it done today [Music] i hate the cage one after i've been hung like it it's a bacon i think talked about how heavy this current is and how these fish lay on the back side of these boulders you saw buddy gross hang up on that boulder come off the backside of it exactly when he got bit those fish will just lay off the backside of those boulders because of how heavy that current is flushing through the river oh my gosh i like that [Music] boy we're having a day i don't want to hear chris johnson say i need to lay down no no no keep going don't do that chris johnston he said he was going to go get another big one though so we we have we have some hope and when they're jumping in the boat for you i think that you're uh you're doing stuff the right way you got a feeling that corey johnston's not quite out of here [Music] great day so far and we are still not to our noon time break here but we will be there very soon don't forget though that we're going to roll tape all the way through that hour of break and we'll have all the highlights for you when we come back one o'clock eastern time to take you all the way up the way in time that happens at 3 p.m here's the take off there paul mueller on top 25-4 as it stands right now we'll be back after this the site one bassmaster elite of st lawrence river is being brought to you live by mercury [Music] you don't know their names yet but you will [Music] it's been said that a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work getting you to that fishing spot is key and bully dog gets your truck road ready no matter where we give you the horsepower and towing torque right when you need it we make getting there better make your ride a bully dog the site one bassmaster elite at st lawrence river is brought to you by [Music] abu garcia [Music] berkeley nitro boats and by ranger boats [Music] just got a handful of minutes 10 minutes or so of our morning session of bassmaster live for you the site won the lead on the saint lawrence river day one competition we'll take a break coming up in those after those 10 minutes are up and be back after an hour at noon eastern time excuse me one o'clock eastern time to take you all the way to the weigh-in at 3 p.m eastern time today so uh plenty plenty more action on tap in terms of live bass fishing from one of the greatest fisheries on the face of the earth the saint lawrence river also as a bonus this year lake ontario for these anglers going out of clayton new york good look at our french creek marina right there yeah okay history yeah so many tournaments have gone out of there throughout the 80s and 90s a thousand islands what they call it that leaderboard right now yeah oh man chris johnston back to back big smallmouth puts himself back up uh ahead of brock mosley taking over second place once again we just saw buddy gross launch himself into the top ten with a good small mouth catch to add to his uh to add to his limit augment his limit of largemouth and mixed with another small mouth in there do you think looking at that map right there that chris and corey johnston are happy that lake ontario is open this tournament boy it is unmolested two of four anglers that pretty much have lived out there today the americans just have left it alone more or less and that'll be crucial to see to hear or to hear from anglers that weigh in possibly or on the phone how many just kind of decided to write off ontario not a bunch of experience there in past elites two tough weather days to start the week you want to start to lose days of practice and you're like i just need to go with what i know and go to the river if you've not fished lake ontario from henderson bay to chamo to black river fox island grenadier galoo stoney island the it is massive okay and a lot of these guys that don't have any history on lake ontario the predominant amount of their history is us going out of waddington to have one day of practice out there you cannot scratch the sir you can't scratch the surface out there in your lifetime living there more or less going out there for you know swindle said he put in about a 12 to 15 hour day of practice he said man it's just hard to cover that much water uh losing two days of practice where guys just could not get out there due to the southwest winds that we have that being said we are going to see those southwest winds on sunday that are really supposed to pick up mid-morning and you're going to be able to see what lake ontario turns into buddy gross now you can't say enough about him he is uh most recently first and second place at you follow our most recent bassmaster elite series event and aoi yeah very well buddy gross now coming into the final day in 10th place just eeked into the top 10. you got to be in the top 10 to fish on the final day it wasn't long before buddy gross went to work you can see how his days went day one through three not bad but man what he did on that final day still scratching our heads our guy on the water davey height kind of saved the really saved the event for us camera woman ashley getting with buddy gross mid-morning there on lakey follow one of the biggest comebacks that we have seen on the bassmaster elite series one of the biggest that have ever been in bassmaster history in my opinion just because that was a huge deficit to make up over seven pounds masterful work there by buddy gross i'm still trying to get over that that was uh one for the ages for sure boy brock mosley's still after it he may uh have the phoenix bose boats big bass of the day with a six pounder helped him call up to 23 in the water right behind chris johnston man it's getting tied up at the top right now winlet mueller johnston and mosley z we talked about it at the monitor the screen of knowledge about the gobies and what they've done for this this place and they're called a an invasive species because they're non-native that doesn't mean that it's all negative or doesn't mean it's all positive obviously gobi are high and maybe protein for these smallmouth help them grow big but at the same time when they get so prevalent they can hurt at times during the spawn when when bass you know put their eggs on the beds gobies uh are around there as well so just wanted to clear that up our conservation director gene gilliland giving us good info right there all i know is small mouth get bigger where gobies are at that's all i know that's all i know that's a cause and effect right there there's our camera going in here micah frazier bacon well strangers and we've talked about this in prior tournaments about smallmouth bodies of water where gobi are prevalent two things that we've noticed they're cute they're cute as a button i guess so number two you don't really see the largemouth weight explode you you know what i mean like you've seen small mouth go from an average size of two pounds to three pounds to four to five six pounders you don't see the large i don't know if it's a deal where the gobi do not go traditionally where the largemouth tend to live but you don't see those they like sandy rocky the only thing that i would say could be different if you look at like cayuga i had heard that gobi have gotten into cayuga you started to see large mouth weights explode um but like here it has not made that big a difference on good ones oh boy oh boy stop the freaking time freaking time we catch one worth catching all right michael frazier with a good keeper one he's been looking for obviously that's his fifth so he's got a limit let's get out to davey height right now davey height man on the spot was there with chris johnson first thing this morning when he took the lead where are you now davey we want to know i'm all the way back up close to takeoff around french creek i've been looking for clark winlet but what i want to tell you guys real quick i put in down at cape vincent went out into the lake a little bit it surprised me how few people went out into lake ontario we see now the johnson brothers are down there but every single year when we come here there's a key section of the river or the mouth of the lake in the river that really goes down and it seems to be all the way down there close to the mouth of the river i'm gonna head back that way just won't let you know after break i'll be back down that way and hopefully see some big smallmouth caught this afternoon davey have you ever seen it that nice and calm on the st lawrence river and lake ontario in your lifetime no this is this is heaven z um but i saw the same forecast you did come sunday we will show how this gentle lamb today will become a beast absolutely if the forecast is correct sunday you will see what lake ontario is made of in the saint lawrence river great job thank you davey we uh look forward to your reports this afternoon davey going back down toward lake ontario i bet how many he'll dig up something oh i i know davey wants it to stay that nice but you you are going to see lake ontario's last show now i'm so like office will they still go out there sunday yeah the the johnston's yeah 1 000. 100 spots yes yes there have been canadian open tournaments where it's blown 20 to 30 that they've been yes they'll they will be out there i actually think those two like it more yes because other guys hate it more yeah probably they have had it for themselves a fan of the day to day that they have been down there but boy we have seen from all up and down the river out on the lake some great stuff just exactly what you expect when you go to this incredible place don't forget we're going to take our break now just a few seconds we're going to go down for an hour the cameras keep rolling the anglers keep fishing we'll have it all for you bring you back up to date at 1 pm eastern time to take you all the way to 3 and weigh in time so thanks for being with us this morning on bassmaster live make a point to be with us this afternoon on fast master best bassmaster live thomas you

Channel: Bassmaster

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Length: 210min 2sec (12602 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020