During the Bassmaster Top 150 tournament that ends Saturday on Lake St. Clair at the Metro Beach Metropark, I had the chance to speak with many of the touring pros and amateurs. Use a flasher or graph to locate these tiny patches of rugged bottom cover in 12-15 feet of water, toss out a marker buoy and start fishing. Grass or pencil reeds can offer good holding structure for smallies too. Nixon likes to fish such areas with spinnerbaits or soft plastic tube lures, and it's critical to use enough weight to keep the lure near bottom. Sunny days produce the best action, and my favorite places to fish are grassy areas.
Tube lures fished near and over the top of the grass can produce jarring strikes and some good fish.
Crankbaits cast from a drifting boat often delivers good smallmouth bass. Learn how each crankbait works, and what its best retrieval speed is, and you'll catch fish. There are plenty of bass on Lake St. Clair's flats, and spinnerbaits can be deadly. Look for current breaks in the Detroit River, and tube lures are productive when fished in 12-20 feet of water. VanDam urges anglers to target structure wherever they fish in the lake or river.