The 2026 Bassmaster Elite Series will be decided by a margin thinner than most single days of weigh-in. Trey McKinney takes 635 points into the Lowrance Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River. Drew Cook has 634. Cory Johnston has 633. Bob Downey, in fourth, is 65 points adrift - this is a three-man fight and nothing else.
Bassmaster's Mike Suchan noted that tight finishes have become routine in this series: McKinney and Chris Johnston were tied on 690 points before last year's La Crosse finale, and in 2024 the top 10 were bunched inside 50 points before this very fishery sorted them out.
Home water matters here. Cory Johnston, from Peterborough, Ontario, has three wins and two second places from nine B.A.S.S. events on the St. Lawrence. Writing for Bassmaster, Christopher Decker put the week down to whether McKinney can withstand that. The 21-year-old from Carbondale, Ill., has twice finished runner-up in the points, both times to Cory's younger brother Chris. A win would make him the youngest AOY ever, taking the record from Kevin VanDam, who was 24 in 1992.
Cook, meanwhile, arrives on three consecutive top-five finishes and gets almost none of the attention.
THE WEIGHTS COULD BE ABSURD
Anglers have earned Century Club belts at each of the past three Elite visits here. Patrick Walters set the B.A.S.S. record for a four-day smallmouth total in 2024 with 105-0, one of four men past 100 pounds that week.
Jay Przekurat, the first angler to break 100 pounds on this fishery, thinks that record is live.
"I'm expecting huge weights. Possibly the most we've ever seen in a four-day event from this place," he said. "Hopefully the wind is decent for us."
His estimate: "I expect the winning weight to be between 104 to 107 pounds. If a guy catches 30 one day and then backs it up with 25s and 26s, he could touch that 107 mark."
The catch is that quality and quantity have moved in opposite directions. "I came up and pre-practiced and it was the best I've ever seen for big fish, but the worst I've seen for catching numbers," Przekurat said. "The days of 50, 60 and 70 fish days are kind of over in the summer when they get beat on pretty hard."
He expects the winner to come off Lake Ontario, fishing rock-and-sand mixes in 25 to 50 feet with a westerly wind pushing current. "You'll see Top 10s 30 miles apart from each other on the lake." Even so, he is not writing off the river: "It can always be won out of the river, but I don't know if it can hold up for four days. Personally, I think some of the biggest smallmouth live in the river."
CHAMPLAIN WAS A LESSON IN NOT REPEATING YOURSELF
The last stop suggested that pattern loyalty is dangerous. Bryan Schmitt won at Lake Champlain with 81-7, a pound clear of Chris Johnston, and said no two days looked alike.
"All week, it was different spots every day. Nothing worked the same from day to day," Schmitt said. "I think these are isolated fish and the spots are not replenishing."
Johnston hit the same problem in second. "I knew I was running low on fish. They don't reload a lot and I didn't have enough new stuff to fish."
Seth Feider, third, cut his losses entirely. "I left the smallies alone today, because it was a waste of time," he said. "I spent two hours on them every morning and, at the end of the day, I wasn't really weighing in many of them."
MORE THAN A TITLE
The tournament winner banks $100,000, a blue trophy and a spot in the 2027 Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Classic. Caleb Hudson leads Fisher Anaya 538-526 for Rookie of the Year, a race narrowed by Hudson misjudging his Champlain check-in time and taking a four-pound penalty for four minutes - worth 17 points. Shane LeHew sits 45th, the final Classic-qualifying position, hunting an eighth straight berth.
Ninety-eight anglers take off at 7 a.m. ET from Clayton Harbor Municipal Marina on Aug. 27, cut to 50 after two days and to 10 for Championship Sunday.