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LIVE-SCANNING SONAR AND ELECTRONICS GROUPING
Sonar technology has developed at warp speed in the past decade , but it ’ s safe to say that 2020 was a watershed year for electronics in the game of bass fishing . Starting with the first Bass Pro Tour event of the season on Lake Eufaula – where Jacob Wheeler defied 50 years of bass-fishing wisdom by dominating a muddy-water tournament while relying on his graphs to find fish offshore – and ending in the aforementioned Great Lake smallmouth slugfests won by anglers cherry-picking fish with live-scanning sonar , the screens on the bow of the boat played a historically enormous role in winning tournaments .
Keen observers quickly noticed that Wheeler ’ s electronics array included units from three different manufacturers – Lowrance , Humminbird and Garmin – characteristics of which he utilizes for various fishlocating functions .
“ Jacob is one of the best athletes in the sport , and any those three companies would love to sponsor him ,” said MLF analyst JT Kenney . “ But he decided to forgo that , because in his mind , each of them does one thing better than the others .”
If you look at other bass boats around you , you ’ ll see that pros and everyday anglers alike are following suit with electronics groupings .
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THE FLAT WORM PHENOMENON
Officially , the Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Flat Worm was not a new product in 2020 ( it was originally on tackle-store pegs in 2018 ). But come July 10 , when three Berkley anglers ( Lucas , Bertrand and Scott Suggs ) caught a combined 384 pounds of Green Bay smallmouth on the Flat Worm , this 3.6-inch stick of smallmouth-catching dynamite was reintroduced to the bass-fishing world in spectacular fashion .
All 10 colors of the Flat Worm were out of stock at online retailers by the end of the week as smallmouth anglers hustled to get their hands on the MaxScentjuiced bait . When the Pro Circuit season wrapped up in Sandusky , Ohio a month later , the Flat Worm ’ s purple packaging was visible in virtually every boat , regardless of bait sponsorship .
“ I ’ ve been saying since we first started producing the Flat Worm that it was the best smallmouth bait ever , but we hadn ’ t had the opportunity to really show it off ( before Sturgeon Bay ),” Lucas said .
THE TOURNAMENT DIRECTORS
The March announcement of tournament postponements throughout the six MLF circuits was an important safety precaution to combat the spread of COVID- 19 . And while Bass Pro Tour ,
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Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit , Toyota Series , Phoenix Bass Fishing League , College and High School anglers began the task of waiting out the quarantine , tournament directors and managers around the country went to work . Hard work .
By the end of June , upwards of 80 tournaments originally scheduled for spring and early summer had been reorganized to run into the fall , swelling the June , July , August , September and October tournament schedules to cover all levels of competition . Schedulers called , local communities flexed and bent to accommodate , and with very few exceptions , anglers throughout the country fished full circuits .
None of that would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of the tournament directors of each of those circuits .
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STURGEON BAY SHOWS OUT
When putting together the list of “ top performers ” for 2020 , there was some spirited debate among Bass Fishing Magazine staff that a fishery , not an angler , deserved the nod for the number one spot . That fishery : Sturgeon Bay , Wisconsin . The town of Sturgeon Bay and waters surrounding
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it in Green Bay and Lake Michigan are no strangers to the bass-tournament crowd ( including many MLF anglers , who have competed in tour-level events there ). The Sturgeon Bay Open – a spring tournament that has been contested since 1991 – produced an astounding 6.5- pound average for its best five smallmouth in 2019 . Suffice it to say that Sturgeon Bay is a bucket-list smallmouth destination .
Still , very few people outside of Door County , Wisconsin , had a clue exactly how abundant the smallmouth fishery was until Stage Five of the Bass Pro Tour and the FLW TITLE were redirected to Sturgeon Bay . The July Bass Pro Tour numbers were staggering : 2,981 smallies over 2 pounds made it onto SCORE- TRACKER ® for a total weight of 8,866-11 for the 80-man field . The TITLE numbers were astounding as well : 1,171 smallmouth for 3,864-12 for the 50-anglers field .
That ’ s 4,152 2-plus-pound smallmouth for 12,731 pounds , 7 ounces over 12 days of competition – an average just a shade over 3 pounds , 1 ounce . Fishery of the year ? Definitely . Performer of the year ? Sturgeon Bay has my vote .
PHOTO BY JODY WHITE
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