Lake St. Clair

A huge, saucer-shallow connecting water between Lake Huron and Lake Erie — roughly 430 square miles, split by the international border, and widely rated among the best smallmouth fisheries on earth. The depth structure is remarkably simple: the open main basin is almost all an 8-16 ft flat (average about 11 ft), deepening gently toward the middle, and virtually nothing natural exceeds about 21 ft — the one exception is the dredged shipping channel (~27 ft) cutting diagonally across the basin. That flatness is the point: with so little classic structure, fish concentrate on the subtle stuff — grass edges, shell beds, and current lines.

Location

MI, US

Type

Natural

Size

Large

Fishing zone

FMZ 19

Tournois

7

GPS

42.3848, -82.5713

• Most events fished
• Most wins
• Biggest single-day bags
• Biggest fish