Larger Body Of Water, Bigger Bass?

[CentralFloridaBass]

Just came to my mind, I was wondering if larger bodies of water carry bigger bass. 

[Fish Murderer 71]

Good food supply, shelter, and not to overpopulated with blue gills and other predator fish that eat bass fry.  also, depends on what kind of lake it is...  reservoir, natural...  how old the lake is...  what kind of pressures do the fish have....  Lots of factors go into making a great lake.  Deep and large is not always a good thing... 

[Jar11591]

I fish these strip pits near my house and they're only a couple acres big, but routinely produce 4-5 lb bass. They are fairly deep though.

[AK-Jax86]

It depends on age of the body of water IMO. But it works both ways my buddy from Atlanta pulled a 13.10lb, also pulled out a few 8s and 6-7s, bass out of a massive lake right outside of a graveyard, you can only get to it from the graveyard and it's surrounded by trees so it never gets fished for that reason. Then my buddy from here in Jacksonville pulled his 13lb bass out of a pond a little bigger than an Olympic sized pool. So I think it is more so how long the body of water has been there and how much fishing pressure it gets. Both spots these 13s were caught out of no one fishes, the Atlanta spot because of location and the Jacksonville spot because it looks like a big puddle lol.

But I mean there's no doubt that a large lake will have more bigger bass simply because there is more room but those trophy fish can cd from small ponds that don't even look like they could yield something like that

[Jar11591]

As far as fishing pressure, I don't think it's the determining factor. Think about all the trophy bass lakes in Texas, Florida and Cali that just get fished nonstop all year and they still produce

10-20 lbers.

[Scott F]

The biggest smallmouth bass come out of the biggest lakes. The Great Lakes are well known for producing lots of really big smallmouth. 

[AK-Jax86]

As far as fishing pressure, I don't think it's the determining factor. Think about all the trophy bass lakes in Texas, Florida and Cali that just get fished nonstop all year and they still produce

10-20 lbers.

 

Yea those are massive bodies of water so its not a factor if you think about it the fish have ample room to move around oppose to a pond or small lake where they are restricted to a certain area. 

 

I am going off experience though because I fished this one pond, not lake, and use to pull big fish out left and right and never saw people fishing it.  Then I noticed trASH, lure packaging, line, lost lures etc and the fishing has be bad to say the least.  This spot has limited bank access but fortunately my buddy has a boat. Where do you think a majority of our fish come from? The opposite side from the bank where you can not fish unless you are in some type of floatation device. 

[Shane J]

Same experience here, AK. I used to fish a small pond very close to my house. I always fished it from a boat because of the very limited shoreline access. I used to slay hawgs in there, including my PB at the time, which held up for several years (7-10). That was before the word got out somehow. The fish population and size went down by leaps and bounds within two years. There are some tiny hidden jewels out there, that undoubtedly hold some trophy bass in every state, but they are becoming less and less common, due to several factors, like info sharing, and people's gross neglect for our resource.

[Shane J]

Oh, and I agree with Scott about the smallmouth. The biggest fish do seem to come from larger, open sections of river systems, and larger lakes.

 

If only we knew somebody around here with say, a background in fisheries biology, who might chime in with some shocking reports, or stats, or something. That would be very interesting.

[Zach Dunham]

All of those things get taken into account and many other variables. The most obvious variable is warmer weather.

 

Genetics matter a lot as well. The genetics of the fish in a lot of the California lakes are a combination of different strains of bass from different areas of the country. Putting a diverse gene pool into a lake is extremely important.

 

Amount of forage and available space go hand-in-hand. A place with a lot of space and not a lot to eat will not hold large numbers. The reason the Great Lakes hold so many huge smallmouth is because they are loaded with gobies and other favorite treats. You can have a lake the size of Erie with limited food and I can guarantee you the bass will be limited.

 

A lot of lakes go through cycles; for a few years any given lake may be a "big fish" lake and then it may transition into a numbers lake and back again over some more years and so on.

[Pz3]

To me fishing pressure determines how willing the big fish bite (they remember lures). Well balanced stable eco systems would probably be the major factor in producing trophy size fish. Water quality is probably very important as well. Parasites, chemicals, and diseases probably kill large bass more fish then anything else.