PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (July 24, 2026) – Day 1 of the Pro Circuit Tournament on Lake Champlain featured the best of what Lake Champlain has to offer. With a lot of anglers putting together mixed bags of both largemouth and smallmouth, 11 pros caught 20 pounds or better, and another nine managed 19 pounds or more. Leading the way, pro Matt Becker tallied 22 pounds, 4 ounces on Friday, and he’s followed closely by Clint Knight with 21-11 and Cal Lane with 21-7.
A time-honored path to success on Champlain is to whip up a good limit of smallmouth early and then spend the rest of the day hunting kicker largemouth. In recent years, with unfettered forward-facing sonar use allowed, that strategy has taken a bit of a backseat, but Becker was ready to go back to the basics.
“It was literally exactly how I dreamt it up when the schedule came out last year – to a T,” Becker said. “I started the morning with ‘Scope, I caught 19 pounds of smallmouth in the first three hours and then transitioned to largemouth. I caught plenty of largemouth, and two big ones, a 4½ and a 5-12, and that culled me up over 3 pounds and got me to my bag. That’s the perfect day on Champlain.”
Weighing three smallmouth and two largemouth, Becker ran history for his green fish, and it worked out.
“The largemouth stuff, I didn’t fish any in practice,” he said. “I just fished history and didn’t really get to practice. The smallmouth, honestly, I expected more numbers. Maybe not more weight, but more numbers – it was a little bit slower, so that has me a little concerned. But I’ve got a few other places I didn’t go, where I could maybe catch a few solid ones.”
At least on Day 1, Becker had quite a bit of room to work with on his largemouth places, and he didn’t have to burn too much of it.
“I really only ran probably 25% of my best dock stretches,” he said. “I probably fished five good stretches I was saving, and I caught fish on three of them, and then I didn’t need more. You never know if they’re going to be 3 ½ or 4 ½, so I didn’t want to mess with that after I caught the 5-12.”
If Becker can manufacture a few more big largemouth bites throughout the tournament, he might be sailing toward a win. His skillset and history on Champlain are perfect for an event with limited ‘Scope, and it showed in a big way on Day 1.
While Becker put together a complete day, Knight simply blitzed the smallmouth for three hours.
“It started off really good: first cast I caught a 4.5, second cast I caught a 4.3,” Knight said. “Then I had to run through them quite a bit to get what I got. I pretty much burnt it to the ground – here, you never know if you’re going to fish the next day, so I didn’t leave anything on the table.”
While the forecast looks good for the remainder of the event, Knight has personally experienced a lot of wind on Champlain in the past. In four trips here, he’s never fished a full tournament. As for Day 2, that’s a little up in the air, and he may need to rely on some largemouth.
“I really don’t know,” he said. “I could catch zero, or I could catch 20. If I can get them to bite, they’re pretty big, but historically, that area of the lake doesn’t last for three days. I caught some no-‘Scope, but they didn’t help, and, I had some largemouth stuff in practice that could be good, but I didn’t touch it today.”
The top 20 pros after Day 1 on Lake Champlain are:
1st: Matt Becker, Ten Mile, Tenn., five bass, 22-4
2nd: Clint Knight, Russellville, Ky., five bass, 21-11
3rd: Cal Lane, Grant, Ala., five bass, 21-7
4th: Broderick Luckey, Lynchburg, Va., five bass, 20-13
5th: John Levesque, Nashua, N.H., five bass, 20-9
6th: Tyler Campbell, Martin, Ga., five bass, 20-8
6th: Colby Miller, Elmer, La., five bass, 20-8
8th: Banks Shaw, Harrison, Tenn., five bass, 20-6
9th: Mark Fisher, Wauconda, Ill., five bass, 20-3
10th: Ryan Lachniet, Gum Spring, Va., five bass, 20-1
11th: Ethan Fields, Breese, Ill., five bass, 20-0
12th: Brett Carnright, Plattsburgh, N.Y., five bass, 19-14
13th: Jimmy Reese, Paradise, Texas, five bass, 19-13
14th: Kennie Steverson, Umatilla, Fla., five bass, 19-11
15th: Miles Burghoff, Dayton, Tenn., five bass, 19-5
16th: Robby Lefere, Jackson, Mich., five bass, 19-4
17th: Brody Campbell, Oxford, Ohio, five bass, 19-3
18th: Connor Jacob, Peoria, Ill., five bass, 19-1
18th: Blake Smith, Lakeland, Fla., five bass, 19-1
20th: Chad Mrazek, Montgomery, Texas, five bass, 19-0
Overall, there were 565 bass weighing 1,842 pounds, 12 ounces caught by 115 pros Friday. The catch included 109 five-bass limits.
Becker earned Friday’s Day 1 Berkley Big Bass award of $500, bringing a bass that weighed in at 5 pounds, 12 ounces to the scale.
https://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/mlf-champlain-72426.html
Major League Fishing (MLF)