Bassmaster Elite Series St Lawrence River 2024 Fantasy Picks

The ninth and final stop of the 2024 Bassmaster Elite Series season is at the infamous St. Lawrence River in Waddington, New York. We have seen several record-breaking weights the previous two times that the Elites have visited there. Before forward-facing sonar was as big of a deal as it is now, we saw anglers able to compete with largemouth on this fishery. The previous two times the Elites have visited there, however, the tournament launched from the city of Clayton which is only about 20 miles from the mouth of Lake Ontario where many of the big bags of smallmouth come from. This year the tournament is launching out of Waddington which is over 80 miles of river from the lake. This could give many other anglers a shot at competing knowing that there likely won’t be many anglers run to the lake, especially if it is windy. We will see finesse lures like drop shots, ned rigs, hair jigs, swimbaits, and neko rigs produce the most success for anglers.

Note: At the time of writing this, we do not know which buckets the anglers are going to be placed in, so we picked two anglers per bucket from the Lake Champlain options. We chose them based on their strengths, momentum, tournament history on the St. Lawrence River, and more! To read our Champlain picks, click here.

Let’s dive into it!

Bucket A: Chris Johnston or Cory Johnston

Photos courtesy of Bassmaster

Angler	Chris Johnston	Cory Johnston
AOY Position	4^th	9^th
Previous 3 Elite Finishes	18^th, 57^th, 23^rd	4^th, 88^th, 24^th
History on St. Lawrence	2^nd, 6^th, 5^th, 1^st, 2^nd	6^th, 2^nd, 2^nd, 4^th, 7^th, 36^th
Strengths	Flipping and sight fishing	Sight fishing

Bucket B: Taku Ito or Brandon Palaniuk

Photos courtesy of Bassmaster

Angler	Taku Ito	Brandon Palaniuk
AOY Position	39^th	24^th
Previous 3 Elite Finishes	1^st, 90^th, 30^th	26^th, 17^th, 53^rd
History on St. Lawrence	4^th, 13^th, 1^st, 6^th	91^st, 25^th, 6^th, 10^th, 7^th, 3^rd, 19^th, 1^st
Strengths	Finesse	Versatility

Bucket C: Austin Felix or Kenta Kimura

Photos courtesy of Bassmaster

Angler	Austin Felix	Kenta Kimura
AOY Position	58^th	55^th
Previous 3 Elite Finishes	67^th, 84^th, 11^th	28^th, 55^th, 57^th
History on St. Lawrence	19^th, 11^th, 10^th, 25^th	7^th, 31^st, 18^th, 48^th
Strengths	Northern smallmouth	Topwater

Bucket D: Seth Feider or Clark Wendlandt

Photos courtesy of Bassmaster

Angler	Seth Feider	Clark Wendlandt
AOY Position	65^th	77^th
Previous 3 Elite Finishes	43^rd, 21^st, 68^th	90^th, 33^rd, 76^th
History on St. Lawrence	82^nd, 34^th, 13^th, 18^th, 28^th, 10^th, 34^th, 12^th	70^th, 9^th, 3^rd, 8^th, 65^th
Strengths	Deep smallmouth	Power fishing

Bucket E: Joey Cifuentes or Bernie Schultz

Photos courtesy of Bassmaster

Angler	Joey Cifuentes	Bernie Schultz
AOY Position	102^nd	100^th
Previous 3 Elite Finishes	53^rd, 78^th, 99^th	95^th, 34^th, 71^st
History on St. Lawrence	17^th, 16^th	46^th, 8^th, 15^th, 63^rd, 104^th, 12^th, 15^th, 6^th
Strengths	Drop Shot	Shallow water

*Cifuentes also finished in 3^rd place at the 2021 MLF Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit event at St. Lawrence River.

07/31/2024/by Jordan Babcock