Tournament News Powered By Lake Drive Marine
Friday, October 10, 2025
- Details
By Chip Leer
Fishing the WildSide
Tactics for Early Summer Smallmouth
It’s early summer and I love catching smallmouth bass. To keep things simple, I’m going to limit myself to just two rods and two presentations. What would you take? I’d bring a swimbait and a jerkbait, and here’s where, when and how I’d fish them.
Big flats adjacent to deeper water are the place to be right now. Firm-bottom flats 3 to 7 feet deep, with a mix of materials including sand, gravel, boulders and smaller rocks are the best of the best.
Smallmouths move onto these flats to feed after they abandon deep wintering grounds. Many smallies also spawn here and will continue to utilize the area throughout summer when conditions are right, such as at dusk or dawn, and on windy days. So if you find a hotspot now, chances are good it will produce fish again and again.
- Details
(Provided by IDNR)
Little Robinson Lake Holds Big Bass
You've heard the saying "Big things come in small packages." Or is it, "Good things come in small packages"?
For bass fishermen, both are true at Robinson Lake, a small natural lake in Whitley County north of Larwill.
Despite covering only 59 acres, Robinson Lake holds more trophy-size largemouth bass than much larger lakes, according to DNR fisheries biologists.
Recently, biologists surveyed the lake by electrofishing for 30 minutes. They captured more 18-inch-and-larger bass at Robinson Lake than they have at any other area lake.
"We caught 121 bass," said Jed Pearson, DNR biologist. "Of those, 76 were 14 to 18 inches long, and eight bass were 18 inches and bigger."
Four were longer than 20 inches.
- Details
By Louie Stout
Giant California Spotted Bass Should Break World Record
Although we don’t have many spotted bass in Michiana, here’s a story worth sharing with our readers.
Check out the photo of this one and see if you aren’t impressed.
Strike King Pro Staffer Cody Meyer caught the 10.80-pound spotted bass Dec. 16th from California’s Bullards Bar reservoir and it’s under consideration as the next world record spot.
Meyer was fishing with friend J.R. Wright on the famed spotted bass lake that produced the current world record. They had already caught three big spots that day – 6.66, 8.35 and 7.74 pounders.
Although spotted bass look similar to largemouth, they have a smaller mouth similar to smallmouth bass, slightly different bar markings down the side, and a rough patch on the tongue.