Guide to Vandalia Lake

Vandalia Lake located in Vandalia, IL is a 660 acre lake with about 12 miles of shoreline. It's about an hour and a half drive from St. Louis and is easy to find as all you have to do is get on hwy 270 and head east. The little lake offers some of the best bass fishing around for both numbers and size. Fish in the four to six pound class are pretty common and some fish around eight to nine pounds show up during the course of the year. I've spent some time on this lake and typically it will take eighteen to twenty four pounds to win a tournament. Two years ago a five fish limit of twenty nine pounds was weighed in late fall! You won't find weights like this on practically any other Illinois lakes that doesn't have a power plant. In order to fish the lake boaters are required to pay a launch fee but it goes to keeping up the lake and to the stocking program. The lake has a marina which offers licenses, gasoline, snacks, and bait.

The lake fishes fairly big for it's size because there are a lot of coves and points. The lake has a good amount of docks while it also features a lot of wood and rock to fish. The lake is a power fishermans paradise and big bass can be caught shallow as well as deep.

Right now with all the unseasonal cool weather we have been having I would imagine the fish haven't moved really deep yet on Vandalia. I would start with a black or white buzzbait or a frog and fish the lakes shallow grass lines. One of the best follow up baits to have on the deck if you miss a fish is a texas rigged sweet beaver with a 3/0 honey hole flipping hook. The lake always has a real good buzzbait bite this time of the year if you get cloud cover. If you don't get bit on the buzzbait pick up a square bill crankbait and head to the wood or rock. The key to getting bit is to bang your bait off the cover. The fish on the lake will either be in the grass or on the wood or rock you just have to experiment for the shallow bite. While the lake has docks the bigger fish don't seem to use them as much. If you are pounding the shallows on the lake and you are catching two to three pounders it's time to get out off the bank.

Vandalia Lake gets fished shallow to death by the local crowd. The shallow bite can still be productive but once the shallow bite dies and only two to three pounders are showing up I love getting out on the lakes main lake structure to start whacking on some big pigs. When you get to the lake you will see all the shallow cover but if you spend some time looking at your depth finder you will be amazed with the amount of off-shore structure the lake has to offer. You will stumble upon old tree lines, sunken brushpiles, humps, and rocks. The best ways to go about fishing all these bass hide outs is to tie on a big crankbait and a big football jig. I've caught a lot of five plus pounders hurling 3/4oz to 1oz black and blue OMEGA Derek Remitz Signature Series Jigs to off shore irregularities out on Vandalia. For the jig trailer one of the best for getting the big fish interested is a Zoom Super Chunk in black blue flake. For some reason I've caught way more bigger fish on that trailer than a paca chunk. I don't get a lot of bites but I will usually average four to five pounders on that jig and get 5 to 6 good bites a day to put me in contention to win a tournament on that lake. One last thing to try is to carolina rig a big lizard or centipede. I haven't ever done good on the lake with a 10 inch worm.

When it comes to tackle on this lake bigger is better. On this lake I rarely fish anything less than 20lb line. If I'm fishing shallow brush, rock, or grass I will spool up with 65 pound braid for most of the baits I throw. When I throw my jigs it is always on 20lb test. If you try to get away with 14 or 17 you will have your heart broken on that lake. This I can promise you!