“I got into bass fishing probably in the seventh grade. A couple of my buddies from school knew a lot about it because their dads got them into it, so we started hanging out and fishing together,” said the Bassmaster Elite Series Angler from Lyman, S.C.

“I saved up my money and bought an old ski boat with a walk-through windshield. I used an Igloo cooler as a live well and built a deck on the front and bought a trolling motor. My buddies and I would put all the lakes around in a hat and pull one out and that’s where we’d go fishing on a Saturday. We’d go and stay on the lake from daylight to dark.”

By the time he was a sophomore or junior in high school Robinson had already tasted tournament fishing and found he really liked the competitive aspect of the sport.

“It lit a fire under my feet,” he said. He joined a local club and began fishing tournaments.

Seven years ago he fished the Bassmaster Southern Opens and did well enough to qualify for the Elite Series and he’s fished the Elites for the past six years, finally qualifying this past year for the Bassmaster Classic held Feb. 24-26 on the Red River at Shreveport-Bossier City, La. He finished a respectable 29th in his first BASS championship.

So far the 2012 season is his best ever in Elite Series Competition. He started off by finishing 20th on the St. Johns River in Florida in mid-March, then 34th on Lake Okeechobee in late March. His record dipped to 64th on Bull Shoals Lake in April, but he bounced back with a 14th place finish on Douglas Lake in Tennessee in May. Robinson capped his season so far with a third place finish last week on Toledo Bend, which moved him into 9th place in the Angler of the Year points race. Just 52 points behind AOY leader Brent Chapman.

“I think the reason I am doing so much better this year is that I have built up a lot of confidence year after year. And when your confidence starts to build, you make better decisions on the water. The final result is better finishes all around, so I’d say my success is mainly due to better decision making,” he said.

Although he has never fished the Mississippi River near Lacrosse, Wis., where the Elite Series heads next weekend, Robinson figures he has as good a chance as anybody in the field since no Bassmaster events have been held in the area for years.

“I’m always excited about going to a new place where BASS has not been for a while,” he said. “Nobody has any good contacts built up so it kind of levels the playing field.”

Although the fishery is far north of most traditional BASS tournament sites, Robinson said from what he has been able to learn it is a really good bass fishery.

“The weights are up pretty high in tournaments held in that part of the Mississippi River,” he said. The only fly in the ointment is the recent heavy rains in the area that has brought the river up several feet, but Robinson said by tournament time he thinks the water level will be back down to a good fishable level.

“It’s going to be typical river fishing and that plays into my style of fishing,” he said. “That section of the river has a huge amount of backwaters to fish, with a lot of submergent vegetation, a lot of lily pads and a lot of wood, so there is a lot of cover for fish to live in.”

With all that flat water off the main river channel, he said, the anglers can spread out and not have to fish on top of each other.

“I consider myself a shallow water fisherman and a jig is probably my best lure, so I think that technique suits the river,” he said.

 

Bassmaster Elite Series

Jun 21-24, 2012

Mississippi River near LaCrosse, WI

Copeland Park

www.bassmaster.com