Six Penguins will be casting for fame, glory and their school in February as they represent Youngstown State University in the YETI FLW College National Championship.

They are members of the YSU bass fishing team, which is sanctioned to represent their school in intercollegiate bass tournament fishing throughout the United States.

Mike Soots of McDonald and Jeff Jardine of Niles are the latest Penguins to go big in bass competiton. They won the YETI FLW College Northern Division tournament on Lake Erie out of Sandusky Bay several weeks ago.

Soots and Jardine are double qualifiers for the YETI FLW College National Champions, having earned their first ticket on the Chesapeake Bay in the summer.

They will be joined at the national championship tournament in February at the Harris Chain of Lakes in Florida by fellow Penguins Jonathan Creed of Niles, Jared Latone of Austintown, Brandon Freer of Mineral Ridge and Cody Allen of Cortland. Allen is the president of the YSU Bass Fishing Team.

This year certainly was a high-water mark for the YSU bass men.

Creed and Latone punched their ticket to the big show with a high finish on Kentucky Lake, while Allen and Freer earned their berths with a sixth-place finish at the Lake Erie tournament won by Soots and Jardine.

The winning catch was a five-smallmouth limit weighing 22 pounds.

Soots said he and Jardine opted to gamble on tournament day after a relatively ho-hum practice. They had been forced by high winds to stay away from the big water out on the main lake.

While they found willing largemouths in grass beds in the shallow of Sandusky Bay, they knew that if weather permitted, they had to go out to the ledges and shoals on Lake Erie itself to fish for the lunker smallmouth bass that are known to prowl those waters.

Soots said on tournament morning, the water was calm enough to speed out to Kelleys Island shoal. Within a few minutes, they caught one of the oversized smallies that help make Lake Erie popular with anglers.

But further success was elusive and by noon, the Soots-Jardine team had just two fish in their livewell. They decided to run over to Gull Island where they also were frustrated by the lack of action, so they returned to the Kelleys shoal.

On his first cast, Soots hooked up with their biggest fish of the day – a smallmouth that was nearly 6 pounds. Just as they got that bass in the boat, Jardine hammered a 5-pounder.

“We found them in 15 to 17 feet of water on a really steep drop,” Soots said. “We figured we’d been fishing a portion of the shoal earlier that didn’t drop that steep, and the fish wanted to be on the bigger drop.”

The pair fished drop-shot and Ned rigs with Z-man TRD plastic worms in the “New Money” color, which includes shades of purple and green with orange and green metalflake.

“We knew going in that we were taking a gamble going out to the main lake shoal,” Soots said. “We were either going to catch them big or catch nothing — no in-between.”

Catch them big, they did, and now they get to test their talents, along with their fellow Penguins, on college fishing’s biggest stage.

Jack Wollitz is a lifelong angler and YSU graduate who follows the Penguins on the gridiron and on the water. He appreciates emails from readers about their fishing experiences. Send a note to Jack at jackbbaass@gmail.com.