Six years is a long time to wonder whether the last one was the last one. Justin Lucas answered the question at Sandusky, Ohio on Sunday with 98 pounds, 11 ounces of Lake Erie smallmouth and a 19-6 win over Jacob Wheeler.
"I feel like I've been in a dream for the last hour and a half," Lucas said after the Championship Round of Suzuki Marine Stage 7. "Just big ones, just biting."
He had not won a national event since the 2020 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Super Tournament - also on Erie, also ahead of Wheeler, that time by a single ounce. This edition was not close.
The two anglers arrived with different theories about how the lake would be won. Wheeler, fresh off a 70-11 Knockout Round victory, thought the winning bag would need largemouth in it.
"I still have a few places lined up, and sort of mixed it up between largemouth and smallmouth, which I think is what it'll take to win this tournament," Wheeler said. "I feel like the smallmouth weigh more and even though the largemouth also group up, I don't know if they'll be big enough to win with them alone."
Lucas committed to brown fish from the first day of practice and never wavered, fishing a drop-shot with a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Flat Worm.
"I think the main thing is that I love throwing a drop-shot and they love eating it," he said. "When I put my boat in the water, I am very confident that if I pick up a drop-shot, I should be able to find some smallmouth bass."
The technology angle is the one the wider bass world will chew over. Wheeler saved his forward-facing sonar for the final period and closed to within eight pounds. Lucas then boated 38-4 on nine smallmouth in Period 3, working a pair of channel markers, and caught his best five for 28-7 without using forward-facing sonar at all. Every one of the six 5-pound-plus bass weighed by the field on Sunday was his.
"When you're going up against Wheeler, you need everything going in your favor," Lucas said. "And the fact that I was on better quality - he is incredible at fishing, but he is even more incredible at our format and just catching fish. So, I knew in my mind, today, I was going to have to catch 20 to 30 fish to have a chance. I kind of bet on a 4-pound average on that offshore stuff."
The middle of the day tested him. Lucas conceded he was "a little bit stressed" in Period 2 as Wheeler and Cole Floyd closed in, but he had a pattern he trusted.
"The first day, one of them saved me in the afternoon, and then the second day, I found the other one in the afternoon," he said. "So, I knew that there was an afternoon bite on them."
Wheeler's own forecast of 90-plus pounds proved accurate. It was just the wrong boat.
The result also amounts to an endorsement of a fishery that has spent years out of the smallmouth conversation dominated by Lake Ontario and Mille Lacs.
"It's not known to be the best Great Lake for smallmouth fishing," Lucas said. "It's gone in cycles. From what I saw this week, I was more than impressed. I feel like Lake Erie is back."
The win was worth $125,000 and moved Lucas to third in the final Fishing Clash Angler of the Year standings behind Zack Birge, who had sealed the title a day earlier, and Wheeler. Michael Neal (68-7), Floyd (64-9) and Brent Ehrler (53-14) rounded out the top five on the day.
"It's the longest I've gone without a win in my professional career," Lucas said. "And you start wondering, like, 'Man, could that have been my last one six years ago?' You never know. So, it definitely means a ton. And to do it on Erie two different times, that's pretty special."
