Largemouth Bass Fishing at Squam Lake, New Hampshire

Squam Lake, New Hampshire's largemouth bass and smallmouth bass and trout fishing is spread out amongst varying depths that reach a maximum of about 100 feet in the lake's deepest region, north of the Long Island archipelago in the lake's center.

Of particular interest is the thick structure, boulders and holes that lie off the northern shores of Long Island, and the reef which rises from the 50-foot depths in the top third of the lake off Five Finger Point in the shadow of East and West Rattlesnake Mountains. Notable too are the peninsulas in the southeast area of the lake, likewise the half-dozen tucked-away coves and narrows in the lake's northernmost corner: Rattlesnake, Bear, Squaw and Otter, each of which gives way to stream-like confluences and tight narrows.

Species range from lake trout to small- and largemouth bass to your usual assortment of panfish in addition to pickerel and landlocked salmon.

To fish for this wide variety of species, bring a tackle box stuffed with a variety of gear: spinners and downriggers, grubs and bucktails, a variety of soft plastics, topwater plugs and crankbaits. Also your usual raft of live bait: night crawlers, hellgrammites, grubs, shiners.

What you fish for determines what you reach for; what you reach for depends upon on where you are. Watch for the rise of trouts, etc., on open water, and the telltale swirls of bass near the overhangs around Groton Island off Willoughby Point, Moultonboro Bay and Bean Cove. And finally the electronic signatures fish leave on your depthsounder as you comb the depths of the lake's finger coves and weedbeds.

Squam Lake is rare among lower New Hampshire fishing lakes in that with a few exceptions here and there it's thinly developed. Even the most grandiose of summer cottages tends to be tucked away behind groves of trees. Although you're fishing on one of the most closely regulated shorelines in the state of New Hampshire, the lake presents itself as if ruled by wilderness, not statutes.

Chalk this up to the power of local building regulations and the desire of area homeowners to preserve the lake as it is. Dominant on the shoreline are thick woods and unspoiled seclusion and numerous natural landmarks, including 1,800-foot Red Hill's domination of the lake's northeast shore. Blunt, abrupt and mysterious, the ridge fills with a strange red glow at sunset, the flanks of the its slopes capped with a spindly fire tower. Two granite ledges, East and West Rattlesnake Mountain, lean in over by lake from the north. To the west, the flat ridge plate of the Squam Lake Range lowers its long shadow over the lake each afternoon.

Most of the land that surrounds Squam Lake is held in conservation trust or easement, and will remain unspoiled, with its undeveloped natural landmarks, for the next hundred years. Fishermen wandering its waters search of their daily catch will enjoy them for as long as that, if not longer. All you have to do in the meantime is head up there.