1000 Islands Top 10 Baits
Some of the best baits for tackling bass in the North Country
The top pros from the Costa FLW Series Northern Division event presented by Mercury at 1000 Islands kept it pretty simple to catch both largemouths and smallmouths from this massive fishery that includes the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario. Drop-shots, spinnerbaits and jigs all saw action and got it done from the lake to the river.
Whether you plan on taking a trip up to this neck of the woods or are fishing one of the many tournaments in the area soon, you might benefit from checking out the baits below.
1. Smallmouth expert Scott Dobson won the tournament with some heavy lifting from a drop-shot rigged with a 1/4-, 3/8- or 1/2-ounce weight depending on the conditions. He paired it with one of three soft baits: a Berkley PowerBait Twitchtail Minnow, a Gulp! Fry Worm or a Gulp! Minnow. He also mixed in a Megabass Vision 110+1 and Duo Realis Spinbait 90 for some key bites.
2. Chris Johnston passed some of the time before the Forrest Wood Cup by earning yet another top 10 in Costa FLW Series competition thanks to a drop-shot with a Jackall Crosstail Shad and either a 3/8- or 5/8-ounce weight.
3. In his first FLW event, Canadian Cal Climpson grabbed third place also using a Jackall Crosstail Shad on a drop-shot. Depending on depth and wind he used anything from a 3/16- to 1/2-ounce sinker. The bait worked so well that he had three or four rods rigged all with the same Crosstail Shad.
4. Like the two fellow Canadian pros ahead of him, Cory Johnston rocked a drop-shot with a Jackall Crosstail Shad. He opted for a 3/8- or 1/2-ounce weight.
5. Bob Izumi banked another top 10 on 1000 Islands with a Gulp! Fry Worm on a drop-shot and a 2 1/2-inch Berkley PowerBait Power Tube thrown on a 1/2-ounce tube jig.
6. Dennis Carnahan took sixth and claimed his second top 10 on the 1000 Islands (first as a pro) with a good old-fashioned tube on a 1/2-ounce head that he fished on deep flats in the river.
7. Andrew Slegona stuck to the St. Lawrence River this week for his seventh-place showing. He targeted both largemouths and smallmouths. For green ones he flipped a YUM Bad Mamma with a 1 1/4-ounce weight. When targeting brown bass he threw a drop-shot with a YUM Kill Shot and a Carolina rig with a YUM Mighty Craw.
8. New Jersey’s John Vanore put a 1/2-ounce Keitech Tungsten Casting Jig (green pumpkin blue) with a Zoom Super Chunk trailer in his hand to finish eighth.
9. Joel Richardson added another top 10 to his resume with the help of a 3/8-ounce vibrating jig and a Lucky Craft Pointer 78. He caught both smallmouths and largemouths.
10. Rounding out the top pros is Neil Farlow who tossed a 1/2-ounce War Eagle Spinnerbait to catch fish – brown and green – from shallow to deep.