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MACOMB COUNTY, Mich., July 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — A sure sign Joey Cifuentes III was in line to win his second blue trophy came when a 5-pound smallmouth jumped into his boat midway through Championship Sunday at the AFTCO Bassmaster Elite at Lake St. Clair.
That bass helped “the Cowboy” claim his second victory of his rookie season on the Elite Series with a four-day total of 91 pounds, 8 ounces, outlasting Oklahoma’s Luke Palmer by 1-2 ounces.
The Clinton, Ark., pro caught 22-10, 24-0 and 21-1 the first three days before landing 23-13 on the final day. Including his acrobatic smallmouth, Cifuentes landed four smallmouth that weighed over 5 pounds on the final day.
“That is what you dream about, to have a Championship day like that,” Cifuentes said. “The conditions were perfect. I knew the fish were there and I got to fish really effectively. It was meant to be.
“It seemed like there were the perfect amount of fish there for me to win this tournament. It was great.”
Cifuentes’ first victory of the season came back in February at Lake Seminole, an event he led for the final three days. At St. Clair, he did not lead a day until it mattered the most.
“At Seminole, I had a pretty good lead, and that was way more stressful,” he said. “Here, all of these guys could have caught a really big bag and won. But I was trying to get to the top instead of holding the lead. The pressure here wasn’t even close to what it was on Seminole.”
All week, Cifuentes cruised around a large area on the Canadian side of St. Clair, targeting smallies that had transitioned into their summertime patterns. There was a healthy population of perch in the area and, maybe more importantly, he had it almost entirely to himself.
The majority of his weight was caught from 18 feet of water around cabbage grass with a drop shot he built with a 1/4-ounce tungsten weight and a brown back colored 3.6-inch Berkley MaxScent Flat Worm rigged on a No. 2 Berkley Fusion 19 drop-shot hook.
He pitched that to…
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