There's no doubt of that, the growing season is longer, the introduction of Florida strain fish into a lot of those waters, and the reduced winter mortality all play a part. In the Midwest and MN, WI, I've caught a total of 11 fish 7# or over. The remaining have all come from CA, TX, and LA. I fished a tournament in TX last May that the winning weight for a ONE DAY total was 37 and change, the big fish was 8-4. The right time, the right place, the right situation you can lay into the big fish. If you look at some of the guys that are REALLY good on Lake Fork, for instance, they catch between 75 and 100 ten pound fish a year.