By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
Two-time Bassmaster Classic winner and 2020 MLF Bass Pro Tour Angler of the Year Jordan Lee has obviously turned in some fine performances over the course of his 9-year pro career. Perhaps none, however, was better than his showing in the recent BPT event at Lake St. Clair, where he logged his first win in 3 years.
He topped the standings sheet after each of his 4 days on the water and earned five big-bass bonuses (one each day and the overall award for the derby). Those added an additional $7,000 to his $100,000 1st-place haul.
"From start to finish, it probably was (his best ever)," he said. "Just from the decisions, to catching everything that bit, to finding new fish in the tournament ... everything was clicking. It was just an awesome tournament."
His most critical decision was to focus his efforts on the Bell River Hump, which is on the Canadian side of the lake and was off-limits to the competitors during the 2-day practice period. The restriction kept the field from determining what was there beforehand and thus caused many anglers to concentrate on stuff they'd gotten a firsthand look at.
"Oh yeah, I think that was definitely an advantage," he said. "If guys were able to practice over there, I probably wouldn't have on just for the simple fact that guys would've found a lot of fish there that were the same quality I was on.
"I thought going in that it was going to be a gamble and it might work, but it might not. If it did, I knew I'd have an advantage being over there.
"I hadn't fished over there a lot, but I knew previous tournaments at this time of year had been been won over there," he continued. "The reason I committed to fishing there was the fact that those fish hadn't been fished for, while the U.S. side had been getting a lot of pressure. Those Canadian fish, they weren't big everywhere, but if I could find the right ones during the tournament, it could potentially be good."
He found 'em, all right, and he caught 'em, too. His daily weights were 22-08, 23-11, 24-09 and 23-04. He won the 2-day Group A Qualifying Round by almost 4 pounds and his combined numbers from the Knockout and Championship rounds topped Jones Jr. by 1-03.
A dropshot rig featuring a 5-inch Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Flatnose Jerk Shad produced the majority of his fish. The bait has a larger profile than standard dropshot offerings, but after seeing some of the hefty perch the big bronzebacks were spitting up, he knew it wasn't too much for them.
He quickly took most of the drama out of the Championship Round by compiling all of his weight in the first 2 hours. He didn't upgrade in either the second or third periods of the day.
The victory moved him up to 5th place in the points standings, although he's well back of the quartet (Alton Jones Jr., two-time reigning AOY Jacob Wheeler, Ott DeFoe and Matt Becker) who'll duke it out for the title in the season finale next month at Saginaw Bay. Those four are separated by just 10 points, with Lee another 36 back.
"I'm in the (2024) REDCREST, but I'm out of Angler of the Year," he said. "With this last tournament, I'll have to wait and see what the weights look like and what's going on weather-wise when we get there. Both smallmouth and largemouth are going to play and I'll try to figure out what might be a winning recipe in my mind.
"I'll gamble a little bit, but I don't know right now what exactly that will mean. It's a place where really nobody has a lot of experience, so it'll be interesting from that standpoint. I'm just really happy that I did my job (at St. Clair) and I don't have to worry about REDCREST, and for next year's Heavy Hitters I just need to catch a decent fish in this last one. I've got a chance to set myself up to where I don't have a lot of pressure."
