as im getting older im not fishing as hard as i used to....but i still fish over 200 days a year and i can tell you this...
you can fish for 3 months straight and wonder where all the big quality fish have gone? sure youre catching the occasional 5lber...maybe a 6 or two, tons of just keepers but for the most part its just an average run of the mill day. and then theres that one day that happens once a year when all the stars and moons and whatevers line up and you catch 53 bass in 3 hours with multiple 6+lbers and a 7 and all the 4s you can set the hook on....and then its over and its back to same old same old.
the point is this....there might be more big fish swimming around than we think. day before yesterday we caught a keeper smallmouth trolling for stripers in 112 feet of water...he was 40 feet deep. im pretty sure the kdfwr doesnt do too many shocking surveys out there in that water. not all bass live in 8ft of water on the shore....and most big bass dont spend alot of time there so they just arent accessible.
i dont ever keep ANY smallmouth...EVER....i rarely keep any largemouth....i will keep every spot i catch that is over 12 invhes until i have 6....they little pieces of fried candy.
but if you want to keep a legal bass? heck tell me wht time supper is, ill bring the cole slaw !
