opening day of bass season

Hi Folks, Guided with my boat for smallmouth bass and pike yesterday morning.  We were on the water early and so were other folks looking to enjoy the opening day of bass season.  Opening day means that you can fish bass with bait and keep them if you wish.  Not applicable to my operation.  Slight wind yesterday from the northwest and the surface temperature was 67 degrees.  We worked the top water bite for a good part of the morning.  We had 7 smallmouth bass come to the popper.  We selected a pumpkin seed looking popper that had a deep concave face and made a deep bellowing pop when moved through the surface.  We landed 4 of the 7 surface feeding fish with the best fish measuring 17'.  We did not land anything under 14" yesterday.  Nice bag limit if we were in a tournament of 2lb to 3lb smallmouth bass.  We switched to a watermelon senko rigged with a 2/0 red worm hook when the top water slowed.  My client informed me that if the senko could catch bass in central park new york then why not Vermont.  He was correct and we landed 2 more smallmouth and missed one other fish.  All of the smallmouth were holding over hard bottomed surface and in about 10' to 15' of water.  Mostly at the first significant drop off from the shore line.  Weed beds have begun to form and the fish were on the out side edges of these weed beds.  We looked for pike casting to a variety of hard ware and managed to land 1 small northern on 5 and diamonds spoon.    I am off this afternoon to trout fish.  Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home.  Have Fun, Willy