Biggest Tournament Smallies

We recently shared an article about the 8.45 lb smallmouth bass caught by Tim Schneider in a tournament on Sturgeon Bay on May 17th, 2013.

That catch attracted a lot of attention so Dale Bowman of the Chicago Sun Times set out on a quest to find out if that was the largest bronzeback ever caught and recorded in a tournament.

After chasing down some leads through the Van Dams and Mark Zona, he found what appears to be the record tournament smallie.

On November 17, 2012, Drew Sokolowski caught an 8.91 monster out of the New York side of  Lake Erie in the Niagara outdoor and Lake Erie Frost Bite Opens.

‘‘On Nov. 17, we fished the inside breaks of offshore humps in 24 to 48 feet of water, which had a mix of sand, scattered rock piles and bait fish. These humps were west of Buffalo, in New York state waters.’’

For the big girl (the one we are concerned with), Sokolowski said they were drop-shotting an Xzone Lures ‘‘Slim Slammer.’’ On that day, they also caught smallmouth on swimbaits, tubes and jigging spoons.  Source

Now that is what I all getting the job done!

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