The Starting Spot: Best Baits on the Potomac, Tube Tips for Smallies, and America’s Cleanest Lakes

The Starting Spot Daily Bass Fishing Headlines are the perfect way to start your day with some of the top bass fishing articles on the internet. It’s the quick, informative, how, where, and who you need to know. So, rub the sleep from your eyes, pour that first cup of the day, and head to your Starting Spot.

Today on The Starting Spot: Best Baits on the Potomac, Tube Tips for Smallies, and America’s Cleanest Lakes | Photo by Mike Staggs

In this edition of The Starting Spot:

-See for yourself exactly what lures the top finishing pros at the recent Toyota Series Tournament on the Potomac River were using to catch their bass.

-When people hear the name Greg Hackney, they automatically think shallower power fishing for largemouth…and they wouldn’t be wrong. But I’m telling you, Hackney is just plain fishy. If he wants to share his tips for catching smallmouth bass on a tube, you’d be wise to listen up.

-America’s cleanest and dirtiest lakes isn’t strictly a bass fishing topic, but as a bass fisherman, I found the data to be really interesting. Where do you think your favorite lake ranks?

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Top 10 baits from the Potomac River

by Jody White

From a story on MajorLeagueFishing.com: Whenever the Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Northern Division visits the Potomac River, it’s a pretty good bet that shallow fishing will dominate and that most of the tackle box will be represented in Top 10 Baits. Between finesse options, winding baits, presentations tuned for heavy grass and more, it took a lot to get the job done.

Here’s what worked best in the September grinder on the big tidal river…MORE.

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Love those tubes for smallmouth

by Greg Hackney

From an article on Bassmaster.com: This is the time of year that the smallmouth up north move shallow and start eating.

If I were going and only had one lure choice, it would be the Strike King Coffee Tube with a jighead inserted into its hollow cavity. 

It’s a good representative of a crawfish or a gobie, and it catches big ones. And if you’re using forward-facing sonar, it’s a very efficient bait to cast at fish you see on the screen. 

I remember when I fished a tournament on the St. Lawrence River last year, I may have weighed in two fish on a drop-shot rig and the rest on either a 3 1/2- or 2 1/2-inch tube. 

In many cases, there were fish I saw that I couldn’t catch on other baits, but they bit the tube best. I had to adjust my jighead sizes between 3/8 and 1/2 ounce because of the size of the wind-blown waves…MORE.

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America’s Dirtiest and Cleanest Lakes in 2025

by Sam Hudson

In a story on Wired2Fish.com: According to a study by the vacation rental platform Lake.com, Florida’s Lake Okeechobee is the dirtiest lake in America, while Lake Superior is the nation’s cleanest. The recent study analyzed chemical data from the National Water Quality Monitoring Council for 46 of the 100 largest U.S. lakes. Their goal was to assess how safe the lakes are for swimming. The researchers used the latest available figures for each indicator, reported up until July 15, 2025. Lakes with less than three factors available in the official data were excluded, resulting in a list of 46 of the largest lakes. The lakes were ranked based on a total pollution score — the higher the pollution score, the dirtier the lake was considered.

Anglers can learn plenty from the results. The study evaluated eight commonly measured characteristics of a lake’s cleanliness level: dissolved oxygen, ammonia, lead, phosphorus, sulfate, total dissolved solids, turbidity and pH. For example, high levels of phosphorus and low levels of dissolved oxygen often contribute to a lake’s distress, leading to unfavorable fish populations and even potential health concerns for watermen…MORE.

Thanks for starting your day with Fishing On SI. Lines in!