Schooling Smallies

I recently fished the FLW Canadian Championships at big Rideau lake, I had 4 days to try to figure out this very diverse body of water I know from past history, smallies would play a huge roll in winning this event! I have always been primarily a Largemouth shallow water guy so I went to work looking at maps trying to get a lay of the lake. I starred looking for large flats near deep water the key was to have points where there were sharp transitions from 12- 25 foot drops with a hard bottom! I found several areas and came up empty handed until I was using my Hummingbird side imaging and noticed a small rock pile in 22ft with close access to 30-40ft of water as I went over it my screen just lit up from about 16ft to 6ft full of fish with balls of bait above it! I backed off and casted a Rapala X Sub Walk and immediately got smashed by a 4 pound plus Smallie and for the next 3 casts the same! It was incredible to say the least, it was awesome there 3 and 4 fish coming up at the same time I saw them busting minnows on the surface, the stuff you dream about for a tournament!!! The morning of the tournament looked amazing low winds and warm weather just what I wanted, we get going and the fog was so thick it was like mushroom soup, we get to the spot it was magical first 2 casts 2 fish over 3.5lbs lost 4 in a row and it was over! So when you see bait flickering or jumping get that topwater out and enjoy the ride!_