Smallmouth bass in deep water

We decided to fish the St Lawrence seaway for walleye. I couldn't find any shiner minnows, so I had to settle for larger 5-7 inch suckers, and we also brought along some extra large worms. We started drift fishing in about 30 feet close to the northern edge of the channel where to big drop of occurs, using a worm harness bottom rig on 1 rod, and a standard worm rig on the other. As nothing hit for a while I switched to a live minnow on a bottom rig. First cast hooked into what I assumed might be a decent pike or large walleye, it turned out to be a 3.5 lb smallmouth bass. Nice surprise, it's the first time I've caught bass in about 35 feet at the bottom. As she had my hook lodged pretty deep in her throat, she ended up being a keeper, and made a nice set of boneless bass steaks.