Top 3 Baits That Dominated the 2025 Bass Pro Tour on Saginaw Bay

These are the top 3 baits used by the Top 10 anglers in the August 2025 Bass Pro Tour on Saginaw Bay. How did Jacob Wheeler earn his tenth BPT trophy and fifth Angler of the Year?

These are the lures that dominated the August 2025 MLF Bass Pro Tour on Saginaw Bay. See Jacob Wheeler’s winning baits, along with the rest of the top 10 angler's patterns, and how both smallmouth and largemouth played in the AOY-deciding event. | FLW | Phoenix Moore

Jacob Wheeler Wins 2025 Bass Pro Tour on Saginaw Bay

With 42 fish weighing 110 pounds, on the final competition day of the 2025 season, Jacob Wheeler won the MLF Bass Pro Tour on Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron in Michigan. Honestly, Jacob Wheeler is a deadly, super-advanced, laser-focused, bass catching cyborg, right? After locking down the 2025 Bass Pro Tour Angler of the Year title (his fourth AOY) on Saturday, he went ahead and won the Saginaw Bay BPT event (his tenth BPT win). Wheeler’s skills and consistent high-performances are truly amazing.

I really feels like Jacob Wheeler Jacob Wheeler can't stop winning! | MLF | Phoenix Moore

Why Saginaw Bay Is a Largemouth and Smallmouth Paradise

When I hear about Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron my mind immediately pictures smallmouth bass. And while that’s not wrong, the Bay is also home to an immense population of largemouth bass. Maybe they don’t weigh as much on average as the smallies, but they are definitely big enough to make them worth pursuing. Especially for the Bass Pro Tour pros, competing in a tournament where every (scorable) bass counts, huge quantities quickly make up for medium-quality.

Likewise, Lake Huron makes me think of huge expanses of water so vast it can feel like the ocean. Bass live on rocky reefs sometimes miles from shore. But at this event, we saw bass boats in water barely deep enough to float, with anglers almost disappearing in jungle of vegetation, throwing an array of mostly soft plastic, weedless, largemouth bass presentations.

This is what I picture when I think of a bass tournament on the Great Lakes. While much of the tournament looked like this, it will be remembered for the final day, when the Top 10 anglers headed to the shallow weedy bays to chase summer largemouth. | MLF | Tyler Brinks

Wheeler Says “Don’t Forget the Smallmouth”

Winner, Jacob Wheeler, did want to point out that his early tournament success was thanks to a good Day 1 period of traditional Great Lakes smallmouth bass fishing. He threw a drop shot-rigged CrushCity Salted Ned Roll in the green pumpkin and goby colors on isolated rock piles in 20 to 30 feet of water. With that said, the images everyone will remember from this event are of him chasing largemouth with a frog, surrounded by endless reeds in a couple feet of water.

Top 3: What Worked Best on Saginaw Bay in August

Once word was out that it was a shallow summer largemouth tournament, exactly the range baits of baits you'd expect, were in the hands of all the Top 10 anglers. | MLF | Phoenix Moore

Following is a breakdown of the 3 most effective baits used by the Top 10 finishers at the 2025 BPT on Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron in Michigan.

1. Swimjig: Draw Strikes Out of the Grass

Seventh place finisher, Nick Hatfield, used a Megabass Uoze Swimmer swim jig. | MLF | Phoenix Moore

Since it seems that on the final day, the shallower water, weed-oriented largemouth bass got all of the attention, a swimjig with a soft plastic trailer makes perfect sense. Running a swimjig through grass rides a really effective line between finesse fishing a power fishing.

Second place finisher, Todd Faircloth, who caught 40 fish on the final day for a total of 102 pounds, 10 ounces, said in an interview for MajorLeagueFishing.com, “I fished grass all week and targeted the edges the fish use to follow as they swim along. Some of it was the outside edge, and some was in the inside edge, but I also focused on little holes in the grass.”

2. Vibrating Jig: Cover Water to Find Aggressive Bass

This is Bryan Thift's 1/2-ounce Z-Man Evergreen Jack Hammer ChatterBait in Brett’s Bluegill with a Damiki 5-inch Armor Shad. | MLF | Phoenix Moore

Again, if I was guessing what would work in a shallow water tournament where trying to get a lot of bites was key, a vibrating jig would be a pretty easy bet. When covering water quickly, looking for active, aggressive biters, throw the vibrating jig. Once you’ve located fish and caught all of the active biters on a swimjig and/or vibrating jig, mop up the area with the number three bait this week, the wacky-rigged stick bait, and, repeat.

2nd place, Todd Faircloth, 6th place, Bryan Thrift, 7th place, Nick Hatfield, and 10th place, James Elam, all mentioned a vibrating jig as part of their arsenals.

3. Soft Stick Bait: Irresistible Power Finesse Presentation

This is the Berkley PowerBait MaxScent The General soft stick bait that Keith Carson used for his second straight Top 10 finish. | MLF | Phoenix Moore

In a “count-every-keeper” tournament format like the BPT, try to imagine a better bait for getting a lot of shallow water bites than a soft plastic stick bait. I don’t think I can. Using the soft stick bait to pick an area apart after the more aggressive fish have been caught, is a powerful strategy.

According to James Elam on MajorLeagueFishing.com, “One of my best baits around the reeds was a bluegill-colored homemade swim jig – my dad made the mold and poured with a Mustad hook. If I’d miss one, I’d throw back in there with a LIVETARGET ICT Stick Worm in black blue on a 1/4-ounce weight and 4/0 Mustad Alpha-Grip flipping hook. That seemed to be a good trick to catch those fish, and I caught probably half of the fish that missed my swim jig.”

All the Best Bass Lures Used by Top 10 Anglers

This is the SPRO Frog used by tournament winner, Jacob Wheeler. I love that roughed-up patina that develops on a lure after a couple good days of bass fishing. | MLF | Phoenix Moore

1. Jacob Wheeler -buzz toad, wacky rigged stick bait, Texas-rigged creature, frog, (drop shot Ned bait for smallmouth)
2. Todd Faircloth -swimming worm, vibrating jig, swimjig
3. Edwin Evers -buzzbait, wacky-rigged soft stick bait
4. Cole Floyd -swim jig, swimming worm
5. Brent Ehrler -Texas-rigged creature, frog, swimjig
6. Bryan Thrift -vibrating jig, swimming worm, Texas-rigged worm
7. Nick Hatfield -swimjig, vibrating jig, buzzbait, topwater walking bait
8. Spencer Shuffield -swimjig
9. Keith Carson -crankbait, wacky-rigged soft stick bait, Texas-rigged craw
10. James Elam -swimjig, Texas-rigged soft stick bait, vibrating jig, power-drop shot