“There are more spawning flats there than on the other lakes,” he noted. “The spawning flats have good gravel bottoms and structure like rocks and stumps. I think that’s the key difference.”

Covering some 47,500 acres in the northwest corner of the state, Pickwick is the middle-sized of the three reservoirs on the Tennessee. Wheeler is larger, at 68,300 acres, and Wilson smaller, at 15,930 acres.

Mason ranks Wheeler second and Wilson third among the Tennessee River’s smallmouth lakes, while Ekema reverses the order of those last two, putting Wilson second and Wheeler third. (Both added that a knowledgeable angler could also probably fish some rocky bluffs on Guntersville and pick up some smallmouths.)

BOUNCING A SHAD
A lot of fishermen find it tough to fish Pickwick and the other smallmouth reservoirs exclusively with artificials and achieve any kind of consistent success, Ekema said. Accordingly, his preferred method of fishing is to bounce a live shad off the bottom.

When you talk about smallmouth fishing in North Alabama, you’re essentially talking about going to one of three Tennessee Valley Authority impoundments -- Pickwick, Wilson and Wheeler.

According to this angling biologist, it’s possible to collect live shad with a cast net in lots of different locations around the reservoir. At times, clouds of the baitfish are in the creeks. You can also find them inside the old state locks at Wilson Dam at the upper end of Pickwick, or more often in the tailrace below just below that dam. However, he warned, the tailrace can be a treacherous stretch of water.

Once he has his bait, Ekema likes to fish along the bluff walls and the barge canals in the Sheffield area. He rigs a split shot a foot to 18 inches above his hook and then bounces the shad along the bottom.

An old rock wall in the Sheffield area serves from time to time as a staging area for barges. Ekema points to it as a good place to find smallmouths. Submerged islands throughout the reservoir are also good places to fish, he added.

Expect to get hung up and lose some rigs, since the fishing is in rocky areas. You might fret if you lost a $4 spinnerbait to a hangup, but with Ekema’s live-bait rigs, the cost is just pennies.

“North Alabama is the southernmost point of the Tennessee River,” Ekema noted. “That’s why the smallmouth are here. They’re not just on Pickwick. They’re all the way to Scottsboro on Guntersville Lake.”

He recommends fishing around rocky points anywhere on the Tennessee when you’re looking for smallmouths.

“If I were on Guntersville and trying to find a smallmouth, I’d look to some of the rocky areas west of Scottsboro,” he explained. “The rocky bluffs right above the dam should be good, too.”

The technique of fishing a live shad with a split shot should produce wherever smallmouths are found. “On Wheeler, the area right around Decatur is coming on strong,” Ekema said. “You can find smallmouths all over Wheeler, but the area around Decatur is particularly good.”

SPINNERBAITS, JERKBAITS & TUBES
When pro angler Jimmy Mason fishes Pickwick, the baits he throws are spinnerbaits, jerkbaits and tube lures. “I find a lot of my fish in 3 feet of water or less at all times of the year,” he emphasized. “You can get them shallow in the spring during the spawn, shallow at night in the summer and shallow chasing bait in the fall.”