Let's Talk Fantasy Lineup For The Chesapeake Bay 2024

Senko lover reply :

Rosters are locked in 9 days, so make sure you get your team picked! I'm looking to make up ground lost at the St. Lawrence, and have a lot of thinking to do for this one. Not ready to share my roster yet, but I'm looking for dark horses who can flip grass and crank shallow, and I'm doing everything I can to not pick Ike since he has 64% ownership. Everyone know's he'll do well.

Looking forward to the event!

Montanaro reply :

Powroznik, crews, and Ike should be solid picks

Jrob78 reply :

I'm going to have to do a little research. I don't know what kind of fishery the Chesapeake Bay is. I'm assuming largemouths will be in play though.

Turkey sandwich reply :

Ike should be a very strong pick. He and Gluszek fish it a lot and have fished off-season tournaments there. Where they're launching from, it should be more largemouth than smallmouth.

Logan S reply :

I posted this in the A-Mart AOY thread but it's a little more fitting here .

The Chesapeake is predominantly a largemouth fishery. Good bags of smallmouth can be caught from the Susquehanna, but that pattern has never held up in a multi-day event to my knowledge. It's also pretty dangerous to get to the best smallmouth water in a bassboat (I won't take my boat up there). The winner will likely weigh in mostly largemouth, if not all largemouth.

The launch is technically in the Northeast River, there are many other rivers, to include the Susquehanna, that all make up the huge body of water that is commonly called the 'Upper Bay'. It is all tidal water and there is a slight saltwater influence. It is similar to the Potomac River and I would guess other tidal waters...But every tidal system has it's own special qualities. Tidal experience will help no doubt, but you can't bank on that entirely.

Bass fishing used to be very good as far south as the Baltimore area (Middle River, Gunpowder River, Dundee Creek) but those areas don't have the bass populations that they used to. Most of the fishing for this tournament will probably take place on the Flats, the Northeast, and the Susquehanna. There will be guys that fish all over the place, but the event could legitimately be won in the Northeast without ever losing sight of the launch marina.

Shallow grass fishing is the main technique that will play. I'm picking guys that are good at that .

Jrob78 reply :

Thanks Stratos, that helps a lot.

Senko lover reply :

I asked Mark Zona, who is pretty knowledgeable about the fishery, and he said that grass and shallow cranking will dominate. Hence, I'm going with those strengths. I have my roster decided for the most part.

-JPow

Mark Zona also said that Jacob Powroznik has been doing his homework for this event for over a year and would be a hot stick on the fishery. I usually like to stick with at least one fan favorite per roster, so this was an easy choice. Keith Combs, Skeet Reese, Bobby Lane, and Greg Hackney were all really hard to pass up. Especially Bobby Lane. But my money is set on JPow

-Bill Lowen

Bill Lowen, the famed shallow water fisherman, at 0.7%? I am a huge Ike fan, but I couldn't swallow the overwhelming 61.5% he's at. That's pretty crazy. I know he'll do well, but I need to set myself apart from the crowd.

-Ken Iyobe

Ken is a fantastic shallow flipper/cranker, and also an underestimated one. He got a top twelve at the Sacramento River, another shallow tidal fishery. Look out for Iyobe! Tommy Biffle was hard to pass up, as well as Andy Montgomery.

-Fred Roumbanis

No surprises here. Fred has set himself apart as a great shallow water fisherman, and I am NOT going with B Hite, or Casey Ashley or Takahiro Omori like everybody always does.

-Cliff Prince

There's always one bucket where I just feel like I don't care whom I pick. Prince got a good result at a tidal fishery tourney in the past, and he's a Floridan, so I went with him.

This is gonna be a fun one!

Montanaro reply :

I may end up going

CFS reply :

Bassing in Maryland for Largies seem pretty good. The Dnr seems diligent in stocking the tributaries with Florida strain.

Megastink reply :

The bay is my home water. Those fish move, and fast. Nate welam won an open here fishing isolated off-shore (but still shallow) wood cover, as I refer to as "low tide spots". I'd expect someone in the top five to do a similar pattern in the northeast. The flags will be crowded, and I'm sure someone will be making a long run south.

Turkey sandwich reply :

On 8/6/2015 at 11:00 AM, Megastink said:
The bay is my home water. Those fish move, and fast. Nate welam won an open here fishing isolated off-shore (but still shallow) wood cover, as I refer to as "low tide spots". I'd expect someone in the top five to do a similar pattern in the northeast. The flags will be crowded, and I'm sure someone will be making a long run south.

Do you expect anyone to be crazy enough to run Susquehanna shallows for smallmouth?

Logan S reply :

I don't think many would consider running up the Susky, one or two may do it but it's probably not the best strategy for a tournament.

For perspective, if you run up there the best you're going to do is 18 to 20 lbs of smallmouth...And that means that everything went perfectly. It's also only one day, so you need to have everything go perfectly for 4 straight days. The amount of fishable water up there is very small for full size bass boats, all it takes is for the smallies to move to an area inaccessible to a glass boat and the day is tanked. On the other hand, on the rest of the upper bay 18 to 20 lb bags are not uncommon and the fishable water is nearly unlimited compared to the upper part of the Susky.

So you'd have a high risk of failure for essentially the same potential. Even running far south has less risk, becasue as long as you get where you're going you'll have more fishable water. It would be different if the potential weights were different, if the rest of the bay was only giving up 10 lb bags it could be worth it assuming you could pop 15 to 20 lbs running up for smallies.

You can catch smallmouth without running way up though, many live in the area around Garrett Island and the bridges, there are also some mid-river rock ledges around Lapidum and Port Deposit which have given up some good ones. It wouldn't surprise me if one of the high finishers pulled some quality smallmouth from those areas as part of their plan...But largemouth will probably still dominate.

I think the winning weight will be around 70 lbs...The winner will probably have one great day with 20+ lbs and then have 15 to 18 lbs the rest of the days. This is all just my opinion of course, I'm not expert up there, but I have spent a decent amount of time on the upper bay and cashed a few checks

Megastink reply :

On 8/6/2015 at 11:17 AM, Turkey sandwich said:
Do you expect anyone to be crazy enough to run Susquehanna shallows for smallmouth?

Considering that they can't get passed the Conowingo Dam? No. Maybe one guy might try it, but a 15lb stringer of smallies is a great bag, but the largies in the bay WILL produce 25lb+ bags.

Logan S reply :

Looks like some smallmouth are coming out to play on the live blog...Steve Kennedy looks to have run up decently far in the Susky and had a picture of one around 3 lbs. Some others have had pictures where they were up at least far enough to be in the rocks...Most of the smallie pictures are fish that are only around a pound though. Still think it's going to be LM to win, especially since the smallies that have been pictured so far are very small.

Fishing looks to be tough, but they are catching them. IMO the tides today and tomorrow are pretty crappy, but Saturday and Sunday look decent...It might be one of those events where the weights go up on the final 2 days.

I can't wait to see what happens, I'm planning on going to the final day weigh in. If I didn't have a tournament on the Potomac on Saturday I would launch up at Havre De Grace and follow some pros around.

ETA, Kennedy is definitely pretty far up the Susky...Pic from the Live Blog. More guys ran up there than I would have thought...But given the flood tide and tough practice conditions it makes a little sense, those fish up there are less effected by weird tides since it's more like a traditional river.

Montanaro reply :

I ended up with

A. Powroznik

B. C Lane

C. Iyobe

D. Roumbanis

E. KShort

Jrob78 reply :

I went with Evers, C. Lane, Coulter, Faircloth and Crochet. Hopefully it will work out, I'm not feeling too confident though.

ColdSVT reply :

A. J pow

b. Ike

c. Biffle

d. Tharp

e. K short

Jrob78 reply :

A very tough day 1 for those guys!

FinCulture reply :

I almost always pick Ike, he never fails me!

Senko lover reply :

Yes! Made up some good ground today. Forgot to set a tiebreaker for the event, which would suck if I won and lost because of that. But it's not looking like I will.

Today was all about survival, unlike most tourneys where day 3/4 is about survival. The bay is in a funk, and weights are predicted to rise through the week.

My day one roster shot me up to 98%, the highest I've gotten. SO proud of Cliff Prince for making top 50 exactly, even with a bag of small fish. At least he wasn't in the one fish club. Get out there and catch 'em tomorrow, boys!

Points: 7,138 Rank: 640 Overall Pct: 98.0 %

Elite Series Tournament: Chesapeake Bay

August 13-16, 2015

Grp Angler Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Pts Bonus Total A

Jacob Powroznik
Port Haywood, VA Place: 6
5 - 15 lb, 2 oz 274 0 274 B

Bill Lowen
Brookville, IN Place: 19
5 - 12 lb, 6 oz 237 0 237 C

Ken Iyobe
Tokoname Aichi, JP Place: 32
4 - 10 lb, 9 oz 211 0 211 D

Fred Roumbanis
Bixby, OK Place: 73
2 - 4 lb, 5 oz 129 0 129 E

Cliff Prince
Palatka, FL Place: 50
5 - 7 lb, 6 oz 175 0 175 ROSTER TOTAL 1026

BassTravis reply :

What happened to Iaconell?

Senko lover reply :

Unbelievable day for Ike, tied for 98th place with 10 people. Having caught 5 fish? Nope. Not 4 either, or one. SKUNK!!! He was dominated in fantasy fishing too, the people who picked him are gonna be SO ticked.

BassTravis reply :

Did he get disqualified?

Montanaro reply :

Not that I'm aware. Just skunked. It happens

Senko lover reply :

He'll fish tomorrow, but making the top 50 cut for the next day is questionable.

danno054 reply :

So the weights are a little higher but check this out vs. the Delaware River.

Last year day 1 at the Delaware River

6 guys caught 0

20 guys caught 1

This year day 1 at Chesapeake Bay

10 guys caught 0

16 guys caught 1

Senko lover reply :

Well, dropped back to 96% today.....Things went a little too close for my comfort. Boom Boom and Cliff Prince are out, and get this: Jacob Powroznik and Bill Lowen made 50th and 51st places, respectively. WHEW! Three of my guys fishing tomorrow. Bill Lowen is in 6th place, he made up some good ground. Hoping he'll get in the top twelve.

Montanaro reply :

This is a very difficult tournament for many fishermen. If you are on fish you can lose em. If you never found them you can find them and if you can't find them you'll never find them.

Fickle chesapeake.

Senko lover reply :

Well, I was mistaken. DUH, if an angler gets 51st, he doesn't fish the top 50 cut. So Ken, Cliff, and Freddy were out for today. Regardless, JPow and particularly Bill Lowen killed it for me today, good for a slight bump in standing from 96.3% to 96.9%. Lowen is fishing tomorrow in 2nd place! Been two (?) tournaments I think since one of mine got into the top twelve.

Jrob78 reply :

I didn't have a great tournament but none of my guys finished below 69th, which actually raised my standings. I'm ranked in the high 300's, hopefully I will finish the season well.

Turkey sandwich reply :

d**n! This is crazy. I was thinking that if conditions got tough, he odds of seeing guys run the river for smallmouth would be higher for the sake of just grabbing numbers. I was not predicting Ike getting skunked on a familiar tidal river/bay.

Jrob78 reply :

Man, Bassmaster Live on day 4 is greatness.

Turkey sandwich reply :

I would not have picked Aaron Martens to put up a day like today on the Chesapeake. Man, that dude can pick water apart anywhere.

Montanaro reply :

Amart and e^2 both doubled this year...ridiculous.

Senko lover reply :

Ended up gaining two valuable points, from 94% to 96%. Not a phenomenal tournament, but I had a guy in the top twelve. Bill Lowen made an impressive charge! I'll take the improvement, and hope I can finish the season well at the St. Clair!

Jrob78 reply :

I felt bad for Lowen today. He smashed them but Martens is just fishing out of his mind right now. This was about as dominating a victory as you will see.

Logan S reply :

I was surprised that the Middle River was the winning location, many other local guys are too...I've heard it's making a comeback, but the past several years its basically been written off. I was right on with my prediction of one 20+ day with the rest being 15-18 for the winner ...To bad I don't get anything for that!

They mentioned that the Elites were coming back to MD next year and not the Bay again, which could only mean the Potomac. Now it makes more sense that we saw a lot of Elite pros fishing the Potomac in the time between the last tournament and this one (still not 'official' but there are no other places in MD that could host a pro event). Hopefully the river rebounds a little next year because this year has been tough! The past several years have been a downswing, but this year is the worst I've seen since I started fishing it regularly in 2001. Either way, I'll be out there watching them!

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