Top 3 Lures for Big Smallmouth Bass: 2025 Bassmaster Elite Lake St Clair

From the unsurprising domination of a jig-and-minnow to the rising popularity of the dice bait, here’s what the pros used to haul in trophy smallmouth during the August 2025 Bassmaster Elite stop in Michigan.

See which three lures dominated the 2025 Bassmaster Elite Series on Lake St. Clair, Michigan, fooling the big late-summer smallmouth bass. | B.A.S.S.

2025 Bassmaster Elite Series at Lake St. Clair: Conditions & Overview

The 2025 Bassmaster Elite Series event on Lake St. Clair in Michigan revealed three standout finesse lures. It’s a late-summer event on a giant, basically flat, relatively featureless Lake St Clair. Tons of big smallmouth bass roam endlessly. Absolutely nobody was surprised to see scoping and shaking a jig and minnow as a prominent technique among the top finishers in 2025.

Sure, you could catch fish all day on classic power-fishing lures and techniques, but to consistently score the four-plus pounders over the millions of three-and-a-half pounders, careful monitoring of your electronics and consistent, persistent, accurate bait presentation was a requirement.

Top Baits From the Last Elite Event on Lake St Clair in Michigan 2023

Last time the Elites visited Lake St Clair, winner Joey Cifuentes (and all the rest of the Top 10) used a drop shot to fool the smallmouth. | B.A.S.S. | Andy Crawford

The last time the Elite visited Lake St Clair was mid-summer just two years ago in 2023. Joey Cifuentes won that event with a four-day total of 91 pounds, 8 ounces.

Interestingly, ten-out-of-ten final day pros credited a drop shot rig as their go-to presentation that week. Only 2nd place, Luke Palmer mentioned a sneaky little finesse ball-head jig and minnow. While the drop shot still played in 2025, the emphasis has definitely turned toward the jig and minnow.

Top 3: What Lures Worked Best on Lake St Clair in Early August

Lake St Clair winner, Trey McKinney, backstage at weigh in, posing with a giant smallmouth bass. He's pretending it's a secret, but we know how he caught his fish this week. | B.A.S.S. | Andy Crawford

1. Jig and Minnow: The Go-To for Forward Facing Sonar Fishing

The jig and minnow ws the go-to bait for half of the final day field on Lake St Clair. | B.A.S.S.

I’ve started to see multiple variations of the name for this bait (maybe the negative stigma that has developed around it is causing everyone to dance around its name), but let’s go with the name jig and minnow for now. This is obviously the wildly popular and undeniably effective ball head jig rigged with a 4 to 6-inch minnow-style soft plastic bait, that most often gets paired with the use of forward facing sonar.

Five of the final Top 10 anglers called out some variation of this lure for their success. And in fact, the winner, FXR pro, Trey McKinney listed it as one of his two main baits. He did say the minnow worked better during practice, and once the fish started to slow down from the pressure, he went to a dice bait (the second most used bait among the Top 10). 4th place, Matt Robertson, 7th place, Cole Sands, 8th place, Tucker Smith and 10th place, Alex Redwine were all shaking a minnow.

2. Dice Bait: A Curious New Smallmouth Killer

This curious new style of soft plastic bass bait made a big showing on Lake St Clair. | B.A.S.S.

This is a new one for a most used baits summary article. I know they’ve shown up here and there over the past year, but in this event three of the anglers who fished on Championship Sunday, credited a dice bait.

As I mentioned earlier, Trey McKinney said a 6th Sense prototype dice bait was responsible for many of his catches. Additionally, 10th place, Alex Redwine used a OSP Saikoro Dice. And an angler who has likely caught a bunch of his final day fish on a dice bait (on the down low) over the past several years, Kyoya Fujita, actually allowed a photo of what I would describe as a next-gen dice bait thing-y, a Jackall King Jimmy Henge (currently only available in Japan).

You don't get many good looks at the baits Kyoya Fujita uses so you'd be wise to take advantage of this rare opportunity. While this isn't technically a dice bait, it does seem like it's a next-generation variation. Dice 2.0? Creature-dice? | B.A.S.S.

3. Drop Shot Minnow: A Proven Smallmouth Finesse Technique

The drop shot minnow is well known as a reliable smallmouth bass presentation. | B.A.S.S.

After being overshadowed by the jig and minnow craze for the past year or two, the drop shot minnow made a bit of a comeback this week.

Three of the Top 10, including 2nd place Logan Parks, 5th place Brandon Palaniuk and 6th place Evan Kung said they caught key fish this week on a drop shot minnow. Actually, Palaniuk and Kung each named two drop shot baits—an X-Zone Whiplash Shad and an X-Zone Stealth Finesse Creature for Palaniuk, and a Great Lakes Micro Drop Minnow and Great Lakes Dropkick Shad for Kung.

All the Best Lures Used by Top 10 Anglers

Shaking a jig and minnow reigned supreme during the Bassmaster Elite on Lake St Clair. | B.A.S.S.

1. Trey McKinney -jig and minnow, dice bait
2. Logan Parks -jerk bait, drop shot
3. Kyoya Fujita -dice-ish bait
4. Matt Robertson -jig and minnow
5. Brandon Palaniuk -drop shot
6. Evan Kung -drop shot, micro-craw tube jig
7. Cole Sands -jig and minnow, topwater popper
8. Tucker Smith -jig and minnow
9. Paul Mueller -football jig
10. Alex Redwine -jig and minnow, dice bait and tube jig