Smallmouth Bass
The dam end is smallmouth water. Conestogo sorts itself by clarity — stained up the two arms, cleaner toward the concrete — and the bass claim the clear half, camping on the rock, gravel, and drop-offs where the drowned valley bottoms out at the Conestogo Dam. And the season runs longer than the summer most anglers give it: fourth Saturday of June through November 30, five months on hard bottom that doesn't move.
← Back to Conestogo Lake conditionsHow it fishes
Open-water bass season starts the fourth Saturday of June — a post-spawn opener under the zone-wide rule — and the pattern holds from that first weekend: points and weed edges through summer, hard bottom over soft, clear water over stained. That pushes you down-lake.
The main basin toward the dam stratifies in summer, keeping cooler water at depth while the shallow arms heat up, and the smallmouth patrol the drop-offs where the old river valley breaks toward the dam. The wildcard is water level.
This is flood control, and the 2024–2025 dam rehab pulled the reservoir down harder than usual — a point that fished in July can be beached by fall. Don't fish memories; scout the edges fresh each trip, because the productive stretch moves as the reservoir does.
The season runs to November 30, well past the summer peak.
Structure
Rock-and-gravel points and drop-offs in the deeper, clearer water near the Conestogo Dam — the reservoir's core smallmouth habitat, and the water that keeps producing when drawdown strands shallower cover. (Feature-type pattern from angler catch data; no named landmarks are publicly documented.)
The GRCA flags points and weedlines as the reservoir's producers from late spring through summer — for smallmouth, that window opens with the late-June season and carries through the warm months.
Regulations
This is a summary, not the legal regulation — confirm current rules with the official source before fishing.