Will Wetline

Anchored on Heavyweight Hump in Quabbin Reservoir.

Google "a-justa-bubble." This is a float to which you can add water for casting weight.

A very well written story. All the best to you.

- LurePartsOnline 1/4 oz. Guppy-Spin Head - #3 and #4 Colorado blades - American made B.B. spinnerbait swivel - LurePartsOnline Bio-Silk skirt tabs - Wapsi Krystal Flash fl. yellow - UPC 210 denier thread sealed with Loctite Brush On super glue

Allen, are you referring to the late, great Lefty Kreh?

4:23 a.m., Hardwick, Massachusetts. An omen? Is the universe saying DON'T GO OUT ON THE BIG WATER TODAY! Hey, I had a game plan and my summertime smallmouth sleuthing hat and I was going! Scooted around the port side of this branch maybe knocking some rust off my 19 year old Toyota. Looking over gear in the boat. There's terminal tackle and whatnot in the utility carrier, pre-tied dropshot and "Carolina Lite" rigs in the top of the Ice Cube cooler and a good many baits to the right. If these aren't enough, I have three full Plano 3600 boxes behind me. This little one got the skunk off early by tapping a Z-Man TicklerZ deep. I wasn't exactly unhappy but I had fully expected a topwater bite which, after half an hour of popping, gurgling and come-get-me stillness did not happen. Pfft! This waterlogged wooden wishbone is hardly the biggest chunk I've landed. Am definitely not getting a smallie vibe here. Onward! Ah, yes. Five days ago a decent smallie grabbed a Sweet Beaver while dropping. This day they didn't want it. You see a Smallie Beaver in the photo. Fine tuning can make a difference. Another smallie on the same Beaver. Looking around the background of this picture, you don't see anything out of the ordinary. Today's game plan was this: get well offshore - past the flats on which they spawned and further out from its edges where they recuperated post spawn. Then anchor on the edge of the deep. How deep? I can't say exactly because I'm a "no tech" fisherman. Let's say 40'. They will hold here until it's feeding time and then move shallower over sand, sandgrass and among scattered rocks. I will be anchored here, making repeated casts around the boat. It's mid afternoon. Sunny, warm, breezy. I'm trying to stay alert but thoughts wander. In my mind's eye is the meme of the dumb fisherman dude who tells his date that "her butt looks like a crankbait coming through the water." Now comes the image of Kim Kardashian's magnificent hindquarters. Y'know, it's symmetrical rolling, wobbling motion is a lot like that of the original Big O. Bet when she's on the dance floor it registers on the Richter scale. . . . Come back, boyo - your line is moving. Reel down. Set. This darlin' saved the last dance for me.

Cgolf, thank you for all the info and the pics. Re the blades, are the ones shown size 2 and 3 or 3 and 4?

What? No, I didn't have a corndog for lunch nor did I use one for bait. And I don't have a passed-down family recipe to share. You see, Corndog is my favorite color of Reaction Innovations "beaver" baits, a wide-bodied, appendage-added version of a spade tail grub. I TX rig it with a Gamakatsu 2/0 #584 EWG standard wire hook, a 6mm faceted glass bead (red) and a 1/16 oz. - 5/16 oz. tungsten bullet. Drag and pause. Deep. . . . Have your eyes glazed over yet? Sorry. I have no pics of hefty smallmouth hoisted this trip, so I'm offering rigging details of a bait that has worked well for a number of seasons. Let's go back to early morning. First cast produced a keeper on a 4" wacky rigged Senko. Shortly after another said hello to Mr. Ned Z Man. About 10:30 the wind came up producing a nice chop. I positioned to reach a 10' depth over a rocky bottom thinking a hungry smallie might have moved up, and soon spotted one eyeballing the popper I was gurgling and splashing. It took the bait under but only by the long tail I think because it didn't hook up. Bah. Spent the next several hours doing a lot of nothing. I had gone back to Z-Man's finesse baits then decided to rig a chartreuse tailed Sweet Beaver. Cast to deep water, I stripped line off the spool. After a while I said to myself, "The water's not that deep," engaged the reel and set. One more hard fighting littlun took a TicklerZ at 4:00. Sun, wind and a few tugs had made another fine day on the water.

I doubt the whippersnappers know the derivation of the term "drop the dime."

Thanks for this post, ErieCan. I throw a 4" unweighted wacky rigged Senko more often (after a 2 3/4" Z-Man bait has been ignored), but I'll remember to try deadsticking a weighted 5" when nothing else works.

Yup. Size 1 for a 4'' bait. When you see your line moving, reel down until you're tight to the fish. Then make several quick turns of the reel handle.

It was a decent day on Quabbin Reservoir in Central Massachusetts with a topwater bite the first couple of hours and then more smallies situated 10' - 20' deep most of which snacked on Z-Man's delicious Finesse TRDs and TicklerZ. Use a circle hook when wacky rigging!

Congrats! And thanks for the excellent, detailed account.

Found a number of post spawn smallmouth at depths of 15', give or take, in locations not far from where they had spawned. They were receptive to Z-Man's small stuff, the Finesse TRD and TicklerZ fished on a 1/16 oz. or 3/32 oz. mushroom head .

The past several trips I'd taken a few fish each time out but wasn't finding the numbers I expected. Maybe it was because of the cold spring or maybe I was simply overanxious. Whatever, today I got 'em. All day long. Water temp was 63.3º at 7:15 a.m. Sunny and breezy. Started with topwater but got no takers. A soft jerkbait worked a foot or two under the surface also got no interest. Next level: the bottom. Z-Man's Big TRD was set up as a "Tiny Child Rig," a tail weighted, ElaZtech bait (alternate name: the TWEB Rig) and it may be too effective. See, when a smallie spots this weird looking creature hopping along the bottom, it wallops it more often than not. This results in a deeply hooked fish which is often harmful. Changed to a top go-to, a Finesse TRD on a mushroom jighead and, let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, tied onto 6 lb. fluorocarbon, cast with a 7' ML rod, and connecting with a 4 lb. smallmouth is my idea of fun. This bait on either a 1/16 oz. or 3/32 oz. jighead produced another 15 bass for a total of 17 on a too-short 10 hour day on the water. The best 5 weighed approximately 18 lbs.

Weather was beautiful but action was spotty. One fish came from an area that's usually productive but nothing else was interested here. On a typical year this spot is filled with beds but not this season. Hmmm . . . Went for hours on another large flat with only one hard strike on a Spin Bait 80 and, at this point, was thinking about calling it a day. Decided to check my favorite rock pile and I'm glad I did: These three smallmouth came in a forty minute period and put me in much better humor on the trip back to the dock!

It was a cool, bright, windy morning. I was hopeful that there would be a good number of smallmouth cruising the flats but it was slow going. The season is at least a week late in Western Massachusetts. The first smallmouth came on a 3/32 oz. mushroom-headed marabou jig, my go-to bait this slow season. Putting soft plastic into play, the second smallie took a Z-Man TicklerZ on, again, a 3/32 oz. mushroom head. Next, after some length of time playing a decent fish that hugged the bottom, my knot failed leaving this fish with a Duo Realis Spin Bait 80 in its jaw. Gave myself 40 lashes with a 7" Senko for this bit of carelessness. In an area with 61.7º water, I found a bit more activity but not what's usual for mid-May. Next week will be better . . .

https://www.rotometals.com/lead-free-bullet-casting-alloy-bismuth-based/#product-reviews I have been using this alloy for several years now. I cure powder paint at 325º for an hour for a full cure. Allen, you must coat the mold with Frankford Arsenal Drop Out (available from amazon.com) because bismuth expands as it cools. I set Lee's Pro Pot IV at "3".

It's been a cold and windy spring in Massachusetts but Sunday's forecast put me in a positive state of mind. Sunshine and light wind would surely bring scads of smallies onto the flats, right? . . . After half an hour of casting an 1/8 oz. marabou ball head jig I had yet to get a bite. Maybe I should fine tune to a 3/32 oz. mushroom head? Yes. Throughout the day I tried a few other baits but concluded that the little 'shroom in black and purple marabou was the bait that would tempt the few fish around. The fish came from approximately 15' - 20' depths. Surface temps ranged from 47.9º - 54.2º.

Allen, I like your spinnerbait heads. When you have a list of what you've got to spare let me know. Thanks. Will Wetline

A-Jay, the entire spool of the Shimano Stradic 2500 is filled with 6 lb. Seaguar Invizx. I get adequate distance with a 7' St. Croix Avid ML so I choose not to mess with braid-to-fluoro knots.

Early morning conditions on my first trip to Quabbin this year presented cold, mostly sunny and a nice chop on the 47º water. Figured I'd clean up around Heavyweight Hump with a vibrating blade bait but, disappointingly, had no takers after an hour of casting. Alright then. I relocated to the deep edge of a large sand flat (approx. 15'). It was time to test the marabou jigs I had researched and tied during the hard water season. It's very important to keep in mind that smallmouth and their prey are moving slowly at this time, so once the jig hit the bottom I crawled it back with an occasional pause but no embellishment to its natural action. There's nothing flashy or fashionable about this marabou jig but permit me, if you will, my fellow bassmasters, a woohoo or two about what it produces.

I buy the 5/8 oz. Vibrating Blade Bait bodies and other components from Barlow's and remove the front hook hanger with a Dremel cutoff disk. If you do this, wear a face shield or at least safety goggles! https://barlowstackle.com/search.php?search_query_adv=vibrating blade baits&section=product

Hook-up ratio is close to 100%. All the smallmouth I've taken on it have sucked it off the bottom after a very short pause. I fish these on rocky or clean, hard bottoms - it's not a bait for weedy areas although with the single 1/0 Siwash hook it would be better than trebles. One further observation: when I hang it, I jiggle it on a semi-slack line. This oftentimes will free it.

. . . drag, pause, twitch, pause . . . slowly on the bottom. Arguably even better with water temps between 40º and 50º are vibrating blade baits.