You have to appreciate the mind of Minnesota Elite Series pro Seth Feider, who creatively announced the birth of his child last week.
In his Facebook post Aug. 11, he wrote wife, Dayton, and Violet Callahan Feider, were doing fine, and he welcomed his second daughter into the world as his “new PB (personal best) human.”
“She’s a little bigger than the first one,” he said. “I think Rose was 8-3. This one was 8-12.”
Feider kissed all the girls goodbye Friday as he left for this week’s YETI Bassmaster Elite at Lake St. Clair, site of his victory last year in the Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship. After leaving the stage, trophy in hand, Feider fulfilled his promised offseason goals to kill some greenheads and expand his family, but there’s one landmark mentioned there that might not come to fruition … at least not yet.
With the top three bags of the AOY event, Feider totaled 77 pounds, 15 ounces, which put him on pace to become the first to top 100 pounds of smallmouth, if it were a four-day event. This week’s event is four days, but the prospects of a Century Belt are slim, he said.
“It’s not happening,” Feider said. “I’m just basing it off local tournaments, taking 23, 24 pounds to win a one-day team tournament. You stretch that out over four days, and that don’t add up to 100.
“It’s not impossible, but I doubt it. You’ll see a 25-pound bag, but you won’t see four from the same dude. There’s going to be a couple 24s, but you mix that with a 19, an 18, and then you’re back to reality.”
While he’s still shooting to defend his title, Feider said it’s a different St. Clair this time, starting with being held six weeks earlier. Also, Canada’s waters are off limits due to its Quarantine Act compelled by COVID-19. More than half of St. Clair is out of play, although B.A.S.S. will allow anglers to venture into U.S. waters in Lake Huron. The southern boundary is the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit.
“We don’t have that much water this time,” Feider said. “Lake Huron is a big ol’ wild card. It might get won out of there, but I’ll never know because I’m not going. From my understanding, there’s some fish around the mouth, but the truly good Huron stuff is farther than I want to drive.”
With many areas in St. Clair not considered fishable, Feider believes the lake will fish small. He expects many in the field to find the same groups of fish but beat up those areas the first two days. He thinks the winner will need to have other areas in his back pocket.
“I think you’ll have to find some sneaky things. I think there’s going to be a couple of big schools that have half the field sitting on them, and big bags will come out of those big schools,” Feider said. “But you’re going to have to have a couple, smaller, sneakier deals to win. Hopefully I can find some big fish, but I might be catching them around other boats the whole time.”
That scenario makes managing any schools trickier, if possible at all. Feider said even if he catches five nice ones, it’s not like the sea of boats drifting around the hot spot will cool their heels. So his hopes of leaning hard on the school with the others then unleashing secrets on the final two days might have potential.
“It’s not like the next dude will stop fishing. It will be interesting,” he said. “The only place I might find in practice might be the biggest community hole on the lake, I might not have an option. Time will tell. That’s what I’m looking for — places to yourself. It’s going to be hard to do though. There’s not a lot of water in St. Clair you can fish.”
Last year, Feider found himself sharing his rock pile on the south end of the lake. He was fortuitous on Day 1 to find himself alone on a community hole and catch 26 pounds, 12 ounces, including the event’s big bass of 6-12. Then he plied his main school the next two days to the tune of 24-13 and 26-6, even letting others come join in on the fun.
At one point, he was catching keepers one after the other. It was so ridiculous that on a rare empty cast, he turned to Bassmaster LIVE camera and deadpanned, “I didn’t catch one on that cast.” Second place was 6-8 back, and no one else was within 10 pounds. If only it were a four-day event …
“I would have caught 100 in that tournament, I guarantee it,” he said. “I thought it was going to happen at the St. Lawrence. That was the best chance I’ve seen in a four-day.”
In battling Paul Mueller catch for catch, Chris Johnston won on the St. Lawrence River last month with 97-8 of smallmouth, just 40 ounces from a fishing first. Johnston did become the first Canadian to win a Bassmaster tournament, despite Mueller landing the largest smallmouth in Elite competition, a 7-13.
Feider said that size of smallmouth goes a long way, and he’d like to catch a couple more like his 6-12 last year, which can push a good bag to a mega. While St. Clair has plenty of 5-pounders, he said 21 to 23 pounds a day should compete for the title this week. Feider will be happy with two 5-pounders, and he can complete his full house with three 4-pounders.
It will be another important event as Feider stands 10th in Bassmaster Angler of the Year point standings, and he wants to make hay up north before the rescheduled southern events this fall. After St. Clair, the Elites wait a month before Lake Guntersville, Santee Cooper and Chickamauga. As originally scheduled, the latter two had 100-pound potential, and the finale at Lake Fork produced two Century Belts last year, but Feider said fall can be tough.
“I need to get as many points as I can in this one. I’ve got to get every ounce I can get here,” he said. “I’ve got to be prepared to bomb a couple and still make the Classic. It’s a crapshoot that time of year. I could win one or have a Top 10, but at the same time, it’s a 50-50 tossup between a Top 10 and a 75th.
“They won’t be biting, I can tell you that right now. Maybe Fork will be alright, but those other three back-to-back are going to be tough. You might see a 20-pound bag from a guy who got five bites all day and caught every one of them. It’s not like we’re going to be throwing back 3-pounders.”
That will occur plenty at St. Clair this week, but Feider finished by joking about his thoughts pre-tournament.
“It’s hard to say what will happen at this point of the game. I’ve got some pretty conceived notions, but that’s not worth much.” Asked how often those notions are wrong, he said, “About every single time I go somewhere.”