Pickwick is on such an upswing right now that Mason looks for it to surpass Guntersville as the No. 1 north Bama lake for bass fishing in the next couple of years. “Guntersville has some real high-quality fish, but it can be frustrating to catch them at times,” he said, regarding that lake’s largemouths. “I had two days on Pickwick this past year when I caught over 100 bass and it was common to catch 30 to 50 fish on any given day.”

Grass is coming on strong in the lower reaches of Pickwick, Mason remarked, and is improving the fishing. Both largemouths and smallmouths can be found in the grass, although it’s habitat more preferred by the largemouths.

At Pickwick in early spring -- at Wheeler and Wilson, too, for that matter -- Mason likes to fish a 3/4- to 1-ounce Booyah No. 5 chartreuse and white spinnerbait with a single willowleaf blade.

The guide and competitive angler does a lot of his fishing on the stretch of river from the Natchez Trace bridge upstream to the Wilson Dam, the section of river in which current from the dam can be felt the most, and moving water is important to smallmouth fishing.

“You want to fish points and the places where creek channels meet,” Mason said. “There are some rock roads and gravel bars in the Sheffield area that can be particularly productive. Your lake maps show these areas and you can then use your electronics to pinpoint them.”

When he’s not throwing the spinnerbait, Mason likes a 4 1/2-inch suspending jerkbait like a Smithwick Rogue. Good colors are clown or gold. “I throw the gold on cloudy, windy days,” he said, “and the clown the rest of the time.”

“North Alabama is the southernmost point of the Tennessee River. That’s why the smallmouth are here.” --Phil Ekema, DWFF

Just as important as color is pace. It’s important to start with a slow cadence when working the jerkbait. Mason casts it, turns it a few cranks to get it down in the water and then pauses 10 seconds between twitches as he retrieves. “You can count it down,” he said. “If you’re getting bit at 8 or 9, you know your retrieve is about right; if it’s at 2 or 3, you can shorten your time between twitches.”

Fish frequently bite the jerkbait on the pause, Mason noted, and that bite’s often not a particularly vicious one. “It can be really subtle,” he said. “You might just feel it pulling a little bit, or you might even just see your line moving in the water.”

Mason likes to fish fluorocarbon line when he throws the jerkbait. “It does two things,” he offered. “It sinks, so it helps you get your bait down a little deeper and suspend a little better. I also like that it’s low stretch. That helps give the bait a little more erratic action” -- and that extra erratic action can be the difference between getting bites and not.

Once the water warms to between 55 and 57 degrees, the spawn is triggered, and the bass begin going to the spawning flats. It’s at this time that Mason switches to a grub or tube bait, such as a 4-inch Yum version; he likes the chartreuse pepper color. “You need to go down to 6- or 8-pound-test and fish this bait really slowly,” he stated, adding that he likes the Yum Mega Tube in green pumpkin, too.