ABT BASS Pro regular Daniel Clancy continued the trend of first time winners in 2012, taking out the second round of the Smak Lures BASS Pro lures, the Sufix presented Lake St Clair Bass Pro.

Showing the consistency that defines a winner, Clancy caught his limit each session to compile a 6/6, 4.62kg two-day limit and claim the win from a fast finishing Mark Lennox.

Fishing the Carrow Brook arm of the lake, Clancy’s money bank was a 50m long, slow sloping bank with a small channel running through the centre of it. Here he would position his boat on one side and cast across the channel before starting a slow rolling retrieve with a twitch imparted on every fifth turn of the handle.

“I really had to have a good feel of the lay of the land under the water. It was important to know where the channel was and make sure I put the lure in the zone [the channel] where the fish were holding,” said Clancy.

Most of the strikes came as the lure sank into the channel or as it was coming up out of the channel. The lure that he was using was a 3” Atomic Ripper Paddle-tail in big bass colour rigged on a TT 1/6oz fine wire jighead and Bassman Beetle Spin.

With only 50m of bank, Clancy had to use his wealth of experience as a tournament angler and manage his fish to ensure he returned to the weigh master with a full bag every session.

“The key was to only fish the location when I could see active fish on the sounder, I really had to make an effort to only hit the fish when they where biting. There was no point pressuring the fish and shutting them down for good,” said Clancy.

Clancy will be one to watch when the Grand Final returns to St Clair in September. “It’s great to take the win, I would like thank Bassman Spinnerbaits and Force Lures for all their support and help,” said Clancy.

Fast finishing Mark Lennox charged home in the final session with a quality bag but narrowly miss out on the win with his 6/6, 4.56kg tournament bag.

In contrast to Clancy, Lennox targeted fish in the deep in the area commonly known as the Cattle Yard. Lennox began each session targeting fish in 12-16ft deep before moving out deeper to 20-35ft. While the area varied the choice of lure remained the same, a Yamba Prawn Blade in a deep green colour.

The retrieve of the blade was slow and methodical, cast across the scattered fish, sink the lure to the bottom, then slowly wind the lure back.

“I found that it was important to use an extra long leader and have a blade that worked at a slow pace to get those bigger bites,” said Lennox.

The approach really turned them in session three, but it was a hot bite that came a bit too late for Lennox.

“In the final session the fish kept getting bigger and bigger, it would have been nice for Saturday to be like that but that’s tournament fishing!” laughed Lennox.

The hot final session moved Lennox from third to second; his best result to date in a BASS Pro event.

“I would really like to thank the team I pre fished with before the tournament and my wife who supports all tournament trips,” said Lennox.

Claiming the non-boater title was BASS Electric regular Dave Trinder who took out the win with 5/6, 3.96kg bag to relegate a hard-fighting Dylan Mott to second.

Fishing the same area both days, Trinder caught his fish hitting points in the Carrow Brook arm of the lake, running-and-gunning spots every 10-15 minutes in the hope of hitting active fish, and great numbers.

While the move between spots was quick, the retrieve when fishing was considerably more reserved. “It was agonizingly slow, I’d throw the lure [Evergreen Little Max blade in black gold] to the weed edge then wind it back dead slow so it would run as slow as possible,” said Trinder.

“We caught a lot of fish it was just a matter of sorting through the undersize fish and spot hopping until we found the bigger bites,” said Trinder.

With a spot in the Smak Lures BASS Pro Grand Final to his name, Trinder will be one of the favourites when the series returns to St Clair in September. – ABT

Smak Lures Big Bass

Mathew Mott took out the Smak Lures Big Bass with a quality 1.57kg fish. Mott caught his fish vertically jigging a 3” Gulp Minnow Grub (watermelon colour) in 50ft of water in the area known as the S-Bends in the Falbrook arm.

Winning Tackle

Ian Miller Bass Buster 7’, 2-5kg, rod, Shimano Stradic C14 1000 reel, 3lb Stren Microfuse, 8lb Unitika Aiger FC, 3” Atomic Ripper Paddle-tail (big bass) rigged on a 1/6oz TT fine wire jighead attached to a Bassman Beetle Spin.

Winning Edge

“I only had a 50m stretch of bank so I made sure I only fished it when the fish were active. And I made sure I fished it thoroughly when I did,” said Clancy.

Boater Results

Non-Boater Results