Smallmouth Fishing Begins

I spent about 4 hours fishing Lake Memphremagog this afternoon for smallmouth bass. With the special “Catch & Release” season that Vermont has to offer, the fishing starts early for me. The air temps were in the upper 60’s and the water temps were almost 52 degrees. Light & variable winds soon became stronger and by mid afternoon were blowing at 10 to 15 knots from the NW. An occasional sunny period broke through the cloud cover making the air temps seem more like June, rather than May 1st. To say these fish were sluggish would have been an understatement! By slowly dragging jigs, I was able to pick up about 15 bass in the first area I fished. The first bass came on a jerk-bait and it was another 2 hours before I had a fish hit it again. The most productive areas were the open water shoals that led to deeper water today. Their metabolism is still in the winter mode as they feel more like ice cubes when being released. I picked up another 10 or so smallies up to 4 pounds on jerk-baits fishing open water, totaling the afternoon at about 25 bass, 3 huge perch and 2 chain pickeral. All in all a good afternoon for 4 hours of fishing on my first day out!