Sunday AM report and question about open water smallmouth

[rwp2101]

Fished a northern NJ body of water this morning from my canoe. This body of water has smallmouth and largemouth. My third trip here. I caught three smallies on the edges of secondary points in 10-15 fow on dropshot senkos. Nothing picture worthy. The panfish were ridiculously aggressive, grabbing and holding onto the senko all the way to the boat.

In the middle in 40 fow I saw big bait balls on my ff from 10-15 fow. I also saw some big marks off to the side of those bait balls in 15 fow. I couldn't get those bigger marks to bite I was using a 4" drop shot worm. I think these bigger fish must be smallies as I don't think there are trout or bryds in the place. Am I wasting my time trying to catch them? Or, do I need to just alter my approach and use maybe live herring on 6# fluoro under a slip bobber? Or, should I be trying some other approach. I love catching smallies but I've never had much success with them in open water.