Well guys, this was the toughest roster for me to pick yet. It's at the end of the season, and all the guys on fire are in Bucket A, all the guys who are doing well in Bucket B, all the guys in a Funk (or were in Bucket E and are doing better) in bucket C and D, and the guys who are plain out stinking in bucket E.
I spent a lot of time on statistics and such. In the end, here are my picks. St. Clair will probably be another one of those dropshot fisheries.
A: Cliff Pirch.
Cliff has done very well at Havasu and the St. Lawrence River, and St. Clair sets up nicely for him. He is not a popular fantasy pick, yet he killed it at Havasu and did well for me at the St. Lawrence River. I expect good things out of Cliff.
B: Brandon Card
Brandon has been doing well on the up-north fisheries, and is a dark horse at 2.7%. I'm confident he can make the top 50 cut or better.
C: Chad Pipkens
My strategy is to always pick one favorite and/or local pro per tournament. Last one was Jacob Powroznik. This time Pipkens is my bet. He's been on fire lately, and he knows St. Clair pretty well.
D: Mike Kernan
Total gamble here. He has done okay at the previous tournaments. This was a tough bucket.
E: Cliff Pace
All the guys in Bucket E are doing terribly, and so I just picked a guy I liked. Who knows, maybe he'll turn around and get a top twelve . It's important to me to pick a guy at the top of Bucket E, which means he either dropped down from D or is moving up. He's owned by 20%, but I'll stick with him.
Looking forward to this one!