@txchaser: You've caught a bass over 13 pounds, so I believe everything you asserted. I will only add that the deepest water I fish is 10'. Often, 8' is the deepest. So, I don't think the smaller and bigger bass I catch separate themselves as much by water depth as the smaller and bigger bass you catch, where you range of depths is much more pronounced.
Without such stark depth differences, I catch most of my bigger fish in shallow water. I caught the 5.5-pounder and 4-pounder below minutes apart, both up against the shoreline. You can see from the photos that they were hugging the shoreline, each in about a foot of water. They might not be big to you, but they're pretty big bass for mid-Maine.
One time in the fall of 2024, I did catch a 4-pounder, a 5-pounder, and a 4.5-pounder on three consecutive casts in the middle of a pond where it was deeper, so I have learned that the bigger bass in Maine can relate to deeper water. Just not always.
Lacking Forward Facing Sonar, it's a crap shoot finding them anyway, but my Female Finding Sonar aka my hunches works pretty well most days.