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Fall 2026
page 42
walking on the bank or crawling up tule stalks trying to get away.” On top of that, there are huge numbers of bluegills, shad, crappie and of course the hitch.
Even though Kennedy won largely on trout-colored swimbaits, the lake does not have rainbow trout. The bass just enjoy chowing on monster forage.
DOES CLEAR LAKE CYCLE?
While Clear Lake has remained atop or near the top of the national standings for two decades, that doesn’t mean it’s always this good. We remember the high points and not necessarily the lower ones.
Monroe recalls visiting in the 1980s with his father. “We’d rent a boat of Ferndale Marina. A little aluminum boat with a trolling motor. Then we had wading and float tubes, too. Hundred bass days were very common, but then in the 90s it got tougher, before coming back in the 2000s.”
Smith’s September 2017 Toyota Series win is proof positive that it’s not easy to catch 30 every year in every season. He topped 20 each of the first two days, then sealed the deal with 12-08 on Day Three to win by over 8 pounds. No one else in the stacked field had 20 even once and it took 29-01 over two days to make the Top 10 cut.
Just as the bass cycle, so too do the baitfish. Brown recalls one period where there were virtually no shad in a given area and a few year later “they’d black a unit out.” Combine an up cycle on baitfish and bass and you have magic – but a down cycle on both could be catastrophic.
WHAT COULD IT PRODUCE?
Brown said that 10 or 15 years ago, 25-27 pounds “kept you up there,” but now, largely due to the scope, “limits can be 15 pounds heavier. It’s the best LiveScope lake in the country.”
Monroe thinks that if the Elites or BPT went back at the right time, under the right format, Kennedy’s weight could be obliterated. It would take just over 30 pounds a day to match it.
“I caught 30 a day in a tournament there two years ago and finished 6th,” he said.
If anything, the thirty- packs are showing up more regularly than ever, along with the forties. When Kennedy won, he had 40-7 on Day Three, but only one other bag over 30. Greg Gutierrez (3rd, 108-1) was the only other angler to have over 30 on two of the four days.
Smith is less sure that the number would be topped. He accepts the premise that the anglers have more
Bryant Smith Left
advantages than ever before – specifically in the form on modern electronics – but despite the limited regular pressure they are getting smarter.
“They’re becoming more educated every day,” he said. “They’re going to be there, but the question is whether they’re going to bite. The other problem with the lake for a four-day Elite is that it’s relatively small. A lot of guys would beat each other up and split up fish. Thirty-five a day is possible, but everything has to be perfect.”
But the fact that we’re even having the conversation about setting records is indicative of the fact that Clear Lake is a lake well-deserving of its national accolades. Indeed, it’s historic run may be unmatched in the modern era. Lakes like Fork and OH Ivie may turn out more teeners, but Clear Lake is a better tournament venue, and almost certainly produces more fish daily in the 5- to 10-pound class. As Brown opined, “You can catch a 25-pound limit of bed fish that are all males, which means you’re only seeing 10 percent of the spawning bass in the lake. The bigger ones are often deeper than you can see or way back in the cover where you can’t see them.”
WHAT’S NEXT
It would be great for the sport if one of the major national trails returned to the west, but it seems unlikely to happen in the near future. The Elite Series pros of the time just about mutinied when the tour was scheduled to go to the Delta and the Columbia River in 2019 – it may have been one of the final nails in “the split.” Furthermore, with gas prices extremely high, the case against a return is stronger than before.
But that doesn’t mean easterners cannot make the trek, or that western anglers should assume that Clear Lake will always be this good. I recall visiting Falcon for the Elites in 2008, and it was Power Fishing 101. Ten-inch worms, seven- inch Senkos (I won’t use Jeff Kriet’s NSFW nickname for the latter. Jared Lintner reported leaving a 50-pound bag back in
the trees because he simply
couldn’t winch the frog-
enticed giants out of the
thick mess. By the time of
my fourth or fifth visit a few
years later, I saw anglers
congregated by the dam,
dropshotting little worms.
So, if you live nearby, enjoy it as long as you can. Go out and catch them the way you like, too. The best scoping lake in the country may also be the best frogging lake and the best deep cranking lake. “Best” rightfully gets thrown around a lot in this context.
And if for some reason it just continues to get better, you should have it dialed in when it peaks. •