Alan McGuckin, a New Brighton native now living in Oklahoma, holds up a bass he caught earlier this week while fishing in Erie?s Presque Isle Bay. Click photo for larger image.

ERIE -- When rough weather rocks Lake Erie, Presque Isle Bay can be a safe and bountiful haven for anglers in search of bass.

Even when the big water is cooperating, a growing population of largemouth bass makes the 3,300-acre bay an option worth exploring, according to Alan McGuckin, marketing manager of Terminator Fishing Lures in Tulsa, Okla.

A New Brighton native, McGuckin cut his angling teeth targeting largemouths in the bay and still heads there on trips home to Beaver County in the spring.

Early last week, when high winds put 7-foot waves on the lake, he got to show off his favorite fishery to friends, who found a steady bite of largemouth bass in its relatively calm but unseasonably cold waters. As a bonus, they picked up some sizeable smallmouths, too, since a limited number comes to the bay each spring to spawn.

"Largemouth bass aren't the glamour fish that smallmouth are, but they're a lot of fun to fish for," said McGuckin, who has degrees in fisheries-related science from Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa., and the University of Oklahoma. "From now to mid-June is a good time to catch them."

During last week's cold snap, water was 57 degrees -- not much warmer than early spring when Tim Wilson, another fan of the bay, began targeting largemouths.

"I fished that really warm period in April when water was in the low to mid 50s and caught all my largemouth in 6 feet, just following the edge of the weedlines with a jerkbait and doing very well," said Wilson, a fisheries technician for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. "I didn't get huge sizes. They ran about 2 pounds. But I got nice numbers ... 15 in three hours."

In early May, a spate of warm weather sent water temperatures into the low 60s, enough to put some bass onto beds in gravelly parts of the bay, though they may have abandoned reds when temperatures dropped. Bass were on beds in some places last week.

"We've had such weird up and down weather, it'll be interesting to see what our young of the year sampling shows this fall," Wilson said.

Electro-fishing surveys last June and in June 2003 in Marina and Misery bays and the head of Presque Isle Bay showed an increase in largemouth numbers, especially in the 15-inch size range.

"There were times we couldn't net them fast enough, there were so many, hanging off the weedbeds," said Wilson's colleague Freeman Johns. "We'd get 45 bass in a 20-minute run. There weren't any huge ones, but there were lots of them."

Anglers were getting good catches last week, given conditions. Largemouths averaged 2 to 3 pounds, though a couple of 4 pounders and a 5 pounder were taken along with the occasional 6-plus pound smallmouth.

McGuckin found a productive spot about 150 yards from shore in the western part of the bay, where a sandy flat dropped from 4 to 8 feet in front of a weedbed. He released 10 nice largemouths, working a suspended jerkbait along the vegetation.

"When a cold front puts fish in a neutral mood a jerkbait is hard to beat," he said.

In warmer water, McGuckin said he might work the weedbeds with a heavy grass jig -- about 1 1/8th ounce -- with double-tail trailer, in a color called June Bug.

"To get the bite, you'd let it go down and get lazy with it. Just bounce it off the bottom," he said. "Another good tool for weed edges is a shaky head jig and worm combo -- a 1/8th or quarter-ounce jighead on a straight shank hook -- bounced off the bottom."

In cloudy conditions, he said, the better bite comes on white lures, and on sunny days, chrome.

When using a baitcasting rod, McGuckin advises fishing 10- to 20-pound monofilament, depending on the weight of the lure. He likes 20-pound braided line when fishing grass jigs, 14- to 17-pound test for spinnerbaits and lipless crankbaits, and 10- to 12-pound test for jerkbaits.

Wilson fishes for largemouth all summer and into October, using a Texas-rigged plastic worm as weeds get dense and topwaters in early morning and evening, when bass come to the surface to feed. The bay is loaded with forage, he said.

"We've seen a huge amount of emerald shiners. Of course, gobies are everywhere. You'll find a lot of gizzard shad, which are an important food source for largemouths, and crayfish. Largemouths will eat pretty much anything. They're opportunistic feeders," McGuckin said.

Bass eggs and fry are themselves easy prey. Anglers are advised that although the commission permits catch-and-release fishing during the spawning season, targeting beds is unlawful in Pennsylvania until June 17. If a bass is inadvertently taken off a red, it must be returned immediately.

"Ninety-five percent of the time, with minimal handling, a bass will go back to its nest," Wilson said. "But if it's kept off too long -- more than a couple of minutes -- the danger is that gobies and other predators will move in and eat the eggs."

One predator whose numbers have been down in recent years is the northern pike, a bay native still rebounding from what the Fish Commission said was a winter die-off in 2003 when prolonged ice and snow caused oxygenation problems that may have been compounded by toxins leaching into the bay from shore.

"Ten years ago, you'd get a pike on every 30 casts, fishing for bass," McGuckin said. "I haven't seen many since then."