MINING DEEP CURRENT FOR PRICELESS BRONZE
CURRENT, WIND
AND GREAT BIG SHIPS
Given a lifetime of Great Lakes
experience, Tackle Warehouse Pro
Circuit angler Scott Dobson knows a
little something about catching bass
from moving water. Before making a
strong tournament run shaped by
Michigan’s mighty St. Clair River and
Detroit River, however, Dobson
earned his victories via plenty of trial
and error.
“At a 2002 tournament near the
1000 Islands [St. Lawrence River]
area, I had been smashing big
postspawn smallmouths and leading
the event for two days,” recalls
According to FLW pro Scott Dobson,
controlling drift speed is a huge
consideration when fishing the fast
flows of the Great Lakes region's
major rivers.
Dobson. “On day three, a big east
wind came along and really humbled
me. Overnight, water temps had plummeted
10 degrees in the west-side bay
I’d been fishing. My fish just vanished.
Meanwhile, guys fishing the windblown
side of the river absolutely
wrecked the bronzies. The wind had
totally altered the current, pushing the
lighter, warmer surface water from
one side of the river to the other.”
Since that event, Dobson – who
secured the 2019 Toyota Series
Northern Division Angler of the Year
title with a second-place finish on the
St. Lawrence – has learned to factor in
wind direction and velocity just as
prominently as current speed itself.
PHOTO BY SEAN OSTRUSZKA
“The St. Lawrence generally flows
west to east [specifically, southwest to
northeast, toward the Atlantic], but a
good west or southwest wind can really
speed up your drift in the main
river,” notes Dobson. “If you’re fishing
a drop-shot or a tube vertically, the
increased boat speed can kill your
presentation because bass know what
current speed looks like, and often
won’t react to something tumbling
along bottom at an unnatural speed,
particularly on the fast end of the
spectrum. Likewise, current near bottom
often flows slower than it does at
the surface, so sometimes you’ve got
to slow your drift by pointing the bow
into the current and setting the trolling
motor at 3 or 4. In ideal conditions, I’d
say drift speeds between 0.5 to 1.3
mph are about right. As drift speed
increases, of course, you’ve also got to
deploy a heavier jig or sinker to maintain
vertical control.”
Conversely, Dobson says, a stiff
east wind can substantially slow your
drift speed.
“Sometimes, that’s a good thing,”
he says. “But it can also be a challenge
because it doesn’t allow your
boat to drift at the same speed as the
current or as your bait down below.
Often, you have to point the nose into
the wind [down current] and increase
your trolling motor speed to match the
flow. This is also important because it
gives you more control of your bait,
keeps it in the strike zone and helps
reduce snags.”
Further complicating matters, current
on rivers like the St. Lawrence can
change from day to day, nearly always
making bass move. Creating the pool
known as Lake St. Lawrence, the
Moses-Saunders Power Dam near
Massena, N.Y., for example, can alter
daily discharge by tens of thousands of
cubic feet per second (CFS). Even on a
30-foot-deep shelf, a sudden shift in
current is likely to prompt smallmouths
to reposition or vacate the area entirely.
But while slack water may turn bass
tough, increasing current normally
induces a more aggressive bite – once
you locate fish.
Another interesting influence results
from the massive, impossible-to-ignore
freighter ships navigating large rivers on
a daily basis. Particularly on narrower
rivers such as the Detroit and St. Clair,
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FLWFISHING.COM | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING.COM | JUNE-JULY 2020