A review of state-record largemouth bass around the Midwest reveals that bigger isn't always better when it comes to prime waters for bucketmouths. Iowa's state-record bass, a 10-pounder, came from 100-acre Lake Fisher, near Bloomfield in southeast Iowa. Nebraska's biggest bass topped the scales at 10 pounds, 11 ounces, and came from a sandpit. Illinois' state-record largemouth, a hulking 13-pounder, came from an abandoned stone quarry.

Discreet small ponds and lakes with healthy populations of shad, bluegills and crappies can often house a respectable number of monster largemouth bass.

Those three state records underscore the belief that while large lakes may indeed produce trophy fish, record-breaking largemouths often come from smaller waters. Why? There's no single answer, but a number of factors favor the production of mega-bass in smaller lakes.

PRESSURE'S ON
Fishing pressure is a constant drag on predator species such as bass because there are simply fewer large fish than small fish in any body of water. If there are millions of shad in a generic 1,000-acre lake, there are hundreds of thousands of bluegills and crappies and thousands of largemouth bass. That's just the way predator/prey populations work.

Of those thousands of largemouths, a large percentage are yearlings or younger, a smaller percentage are 2- to 4-pounders and an even smaller percentage are trophy-caliber fish. Since everybody wants to catch a trophy, those largest fish are under a lot of pressure. Even if the majority of trophy bass anglers practice catch-and-release in that 1,000-acre lake, there may be only one or two trophies per 100 surface acres at any given time.

Now envision a 20- to 30-acre lake that's been around for 50 years, a lake that disappeared long ago from the "Fishing Hotspots" reports. It's a great place to camp on the weekends because the kids can catch buckets full of palm-sized bluegills and sunfish by fishing the edges of extensive weed beds or off the riprapped face of the dam. Ask at a local bait shop about the little lake's fishing potential, and it gets a lukewarm reply: "Decent bluegills, a few crappies and an occasional bass."

That's the sort of fishing report that should make the hair on the back of the neck of a die-hard bucketmouth hunter stand on end. All the elements are in place in that small lake to allow largemouths to live long, easy lives, dining on abundant panfish and unmolested by knowledgeable anglers. Their greatest threat is during their young-and-dumb years, when bass often fall prey to local catch-and-keep anglers who ignore minimum size restrictions and defiantly take home all the eager-to-please 1- and 2-pound bass prone to gulp whatever baits and lures pass within reach.

The few bass in that small lake that avoid catch-and-keep anglers can grow to a size and wariness that eventually makes them nearly immune to the paltry offerings of casual anglers. These kings -- and especially queens -- of small lakes live a life of luxury. Food is only a gulp away. Stunted bluegills throng beneath the weedbeds, and big bass soon learn that it's quicker to fill their stomach with a couple quick lunges at a passing school of 5-inch bluegills than to spend an hour chasing enough 2-inch baitfish to satisfy their appetite.