Finding smallmouths immediately at ice out depends on your temperature gauge and intricate knowledge of the lake’s locations as they relate to seasons. Be mindful that smallmouths are sensitive to water temperature changes. Any trickle of warmth is a trigger for increased feeding, while cold fronts are a killer. Early on, smallmouths will concentrate along the base of breaks in deeper water leading up to shallow flats and spawning grounds that will be visited throughout the next few weeks. When winter is unrelenting, they can remain near wintering areas until the next warm-up. I remember a lot of anglers still catching wintering smallmouths these last few springs, and those congregations and locations will each vary by lake. On our northern lakes, smallmouths winter in moderately deep basins, along the base of main lake points, rock humps and ledges, or out in deep flats that vary between 20 to 50 feet (all depending upon the lake). It’s noted how ritualistic smallmouth bass are, thus they will often return to the same spawning sites and feeding flats year after year. Because of these characteristics, a sense of location and understanding of the lake’s top