The words had no sooner come out of his mouth than he made a long cast, hopped the jig on the bottom twice and then set the hook. He had on a monster smallmouth on that weighed 7 1/2-pounds when finally brought to the boat!

As I was busy with my camera, taking pictures of the big smallmouth, Nixon interrupted my fidgeting. "Put that camera down," he advised. "These fish are turned on, and you need to be fishing."

Following his instructions, I soon had my jig in the water. Quickly a fish almost jarred the rod out of my hand. When that battle ended, I had a 6 l/2-pound smallmouth at the boat. By the time the fishing ended at dark, we had caught and released more than 100 pounds' worth of smallmouths ranging in size from 2 l/2 to 7 l/2 pounds -- and all from that one bar.

"In all my years of fishing, I've never caught more or bigger smallmouth than we have today," Nixon said. Pretty impressive, coming from an angler who has sampled the best of North America's bass waters!

PICKWICK'S "MR. SMALLMOUTH"
Fishing guide Roger Stegall, of Iuka, Miss., has been plying the waters of Pickwick Lake for more than 20 years, during which he's learned a lot about the habits of the impoundment's bronzebacks and located any number of the lake's smallie hotspots. Among the skills that he has acquired is that of regularly putting his clients on big smallmouths weighing over 5 pounds. Some of those fish also top the 6- and 7-pound marks. Stegall's best personal smallmouth weighed in at 8 pounds. Each year Stegall and his clients catch and release about 150 smallmouth bass that weigh 5 pounds or more.

When it comes to the best lure for Pickwick smallmouths, Stegall proved that he's a man for all seasons, mentioning jig-and-grub combos, spinnerbaits, Zero worms, crankbaits and jerkbaits. What he casts depends on the conditions.

"My favorite grub for Pickwick smallmouth is a smoke color with blue glitter, or chartreuse with silver glitter," he offered. "I like to fish the Strike King 3X grubs because they stay on my hook longer, and I don't have to constantly replace them."

Most fishermen believe that you have to give a grub a lot of action to get a smallmouth to take it, but Stegall depends on the grub's natural movement as he retrieves. "I cast out and let it hit the bottom," he said. "I bring my rod up to the 10 o'clock position and make eight or 10 quick turns of the reel handle, which causes the grub to look like a minnow swimming off the bottom. Then I stop reeling. The grub will swim toward the bottom instead of falling vertically.

"When I see slack in my line, I know the grub has hit the bottom. I then reel 10 more times and stop the grub again. You don't always feel the bite when the grub is swimming back toward the bottom. That's why you need to use high-visibility line to see the bites you aren't feeling.

"Often when the smallmouth attacks the grub, you see your line move sideways or the line twitch. Even though the bite's small, and you don't feel it, you may be hooking into a 6-pound smallmouth."