By MLF Communications Staff
MASSENA, N.Y. – It was a bad weekend to be a smallmouth bass on the St. Lawrence River and the eastern end of Lake Ontario, especially ones being targeted by the Johnston family.

On Lake Ontario, Cory and father Lynn Johnston won the three-day Thousand Islands Open out of Kingston, Ontario, with more than a 5 1/2 -pound average per fish. Meanwhile, running nearly to Lake Ontario every day, Chris Johnston weighed 76 pounds, 1 ounce over three days to win Tackle Warehouse Invitationals Stop 6 Presented by B&W Trailer Hitches in fine style.

Hayden O’Barr finished second with 68-8 with Banks Shaw, Brent Anderson and Clay Reece rounding out the top 5 – all with more than 67 pounds – but nobody was really close to Johnston after he sailed through Day 2. The win is Johnston’s second at the FLW Tour or Invitationals level, his first coming back in 2018 on the Harris Chain. For this win, he pocketed $80,000 and further cemented his already sterling record on the big river.

After making a long run on Day 1, Johnston wasn’t exactly feeling the love from his favorite river early on.

“I went to some spots that were new to me, to be honest,” he said. “I found them in practice and made a long run to them, and they were pretty loaded in practice. I was pretty excited. And, I had four spots where I thought they were all 4 1/2-plus, and there were five to 10 fish per spot.

“Some of them were gone, some wouldn’t bite, and the wheels started spinning,” he said. “It was 11:00. I had two hours left to fish. And I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get out of this area.’”

Luckily, Johnston is long on experience on the St. Lawrence, and he had some good backup stuff in the tank.

“I went to a different section of the river, and I landed on a couple spots, and they were biting every spot,” he said. “I just stayed in the other zone where I caught them at the end of the day, and it produced every day. I probably shouldn’t leave that area again, to be honest.”

When his closest competition faltered on Day 2, Johnston was able to go into Day 3 with a solid lead. Though he didn’t immediately catch the winning bag, he wasn’t nervous for long.

“I’ve been super close many times on the St. Lawrence with MLF or FLW in the past,” he said. “I won my first Toyota Series here four or five years ago in Massena. This is my second time back, so it’s been good to me. I’ve led on the St. Lawrence probably four or five times and blew it on the final day, so there’s always a little nerves going out there, but catching a few early kind of took the nerves away and it made for a pretty good day fishing today.”

Fishing mostly familiar water, Johnston stayed fairly deep and drifted a lot and used LiveScope and a minnow some.

For drifting, Johnston mostly used a 3/8-ounce Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Tube, and he used a minnow on a 5.3-gram Gamakatsu Horizon Jig Head. Launching his baits on a Daiwa Tatula Elite with an 8-pound Seaguar Tatsu leader, he used 16-pound Seaguar PEX8 braid, which he thinks made a big difference in his presentations.

“It’s the best [braid] I’ve ever used, but the key is being able to get your bait a long ways away from the boat,” he said. “Even ‘Scoping, my LiveScope is set out to 100 feet. I still have to cast further than that because the current sucks my bait down. When it’s actually in the strike zone, it’s usually 70, 80 feet from my boat, but you’ve got to cast 130 feet to get it down there.”

Running close to Ontario every day, Johnston mixed old standards with some new places and tweaks to come out on top yet again.

“I hit a couple spots that have been good to me in the past,” Johnston said. “I saw boats on them in practice, and there weren’t any in the tournament, which shocked me. But that’s part of the reason is because they’re so hard to catch. So, just knowing they’re there and just figuring out a way to get them to bite was the key this week, and then, finding a couple new areas.

“I’d never caught them on a few areas where I caught them in this tournament,” he added. “So, it’s not just going to fish the same old water. You’ve got to relocate them every year, because it seems like if you find a new spot, they seem to bite a little better. They don’t necessarily live there all year, but if they’re there for a week and you can find them on that little staging point, you can put a little hurting on them.”

Shaw’s top-5 finish sewed up the Rookie of the Year and Angler of the Year titles along with clinching an invitation to the Bass Pro Tour in 2026. Mitchell Robinson, Jacob Walker, and Dustin Smith also secured Bass Pro Tour invites. Bobby Lane finished fourth in points, but is already active on the BPT.

The top 36 pros in the standings also qualified for the Invitationals Championship on the Mississippi River (LaCrosse, Wis.) on Sept. 5-7, and it came down to the last day there as well. On the final day, Blake Smith and Marshall Hughes both had a chance to fish their way into the championship, and tough final days knocked them out. Meanwhile, Alex Davis, with 918 points, was the last man in.

Here’s how the top 30 looked at the end:
1. Chris Johnston, 15, 76-01, $80,000
2. Hayden O'Barr, 15, 68-08, $30,000
3. Banks Shaw, 15, 67-14, $20,000
4. Brent Anderson, 15, 67-09, $18,000
5. Clay Reece, 15, 67-03, $17,000
6. Nick Hatfield, 15, 66-12, $16,000
7. Mitchell Robinson, 15, 66-04, $15,000
8. Brett Carnright, 15, 66-03, $14,250
9. Lane Olson, 15, 65-14, $13,000
10. John Murray, 15, 65-06, $13,000
11. Jacob Walker, 15, 65-05, $10,750
12. Jon Canada, 15, 65-05, $10,000
13. John Levesque, 15, 65-04, $10,000
14. Brian Latimer, 15, 65-04, $10,000
15. Jordan Wiggins, 15, 64-09, $11,000
16. Shaw Grigsby, 15, 63-15, $10,000
17. Ethan Greene, 15, 63-12, $10,000
18. Marty Robinson, 15, 62-10, $10,000
19. Bradley Roy, 15, 62-07, $10,000
20. Keith Poche, 15, 62-02, $10,000
21. Keith Carson, 15, 61-08, $9,000
22. Kyle Cortiana, 15, 61-08, $9,000
23. Chris Lane, 15, 61-08, $9,000
24. Blake Smith, 15, 61-01, $9,000
25. Joshua McGeary, 15, 60-10, $9,000
26. Andrew Nordbye, 15, 58-05, $9,000
27. Marshall Hughes, 14, 57-10, $9,000
28. Drew Gill, 15, 56-12, $9,000
29. Bobby Lane, 15, 56-11, $9,000
30. Gary Miller, 15, 54-09, $9,000