Here's my theory and I'll probably get blasted for it. The COE plays with the lake elevation waaaaaaay too much. A poor ole largemouth doesn't know where to set up shop for a bed in the spring. As soon as she gets something going a 5 inch rain will come or they drop it drastically in anticipation of one coming. I personally believe the smallmouth are heading down hill to, at least in numbers. Every time I'm at the docks in the middle of the day anymore I see somebody putting the knife to barely keeper smallmouth. Look at the guides websites, I've gotten to where I can't, everytime I do I see 14 people holding up half frozen brown bass for the camera, even though they paid to go catch STRIPERS. Couple that with tournament relentless pressure and you have the recipe for disaster. When you have 200 boat tourneys going out and 60 plus percent sometimes don't weigh any fish there is something wrong. But hey according to KDFW the lake is in great shape on numbers, bull$%^!. Sorry, you hit on a touchy subject for me right now. I guess I'll have to start going to Dale with Elnut and forget about Cumberland, it's just so far for me to go, Cland is already far enough. :-(