ive been wondering if my part of wisconsin is cursed in not having any big bass, my biggest bass this year is in my avatar, and its just over 16" and even tho he was a fattie, im guessing weighs around 2 1/2 pounds my biggest i have ever caught was 18 1/2" and probly 3 sumthin pounds... the average size of fish i catch is 12-13" well, what are your guys' average and whats your Personal Best?

Yes. 

Heat, could not help myself answering your query.

What may be happening is that the big ones are deep in oxygenated water and the smaller ones are active.

Or you have only the smaller ones in the waters you are fishing from over population.

Try a drop shot with a Roboworm on the bottom fished slowly. Rig the finesse worm wacky style.

Good luck!!! 

If you have a look through the fish reports on that site i told you about, you'll see that i caught some quality fish this year. The lake is about 3 hours southeast from you, so not too different weather wise. And it's very shallow and weedy.

I wasn't consistently catching larger fish until this year. My skills from last year to this year increased A LOT. Last year i'd be jumping up and down if i got one over 18". This year i had a couple days where i got 4 fish over 18", sometimes one of them going 20". My best 5 fish on those days were probably pushing 18-20lbs. That's d**n good for wisconsin! That's a whole day of fishing though, morning to evening.

You know how i got better? Lots of time on the water, and I made an effort to fish with other people who knew what they were doing. Don't worry about it now, keep at it. Those larger fish will come.

Don't say that the waters you fish are probably crap compared to mine...i know a guy who didn't catch anything over 18" this year.

Slow down your presentations. Try more subtle action baits. More action is not always better.

Also, try to be stealthier when approaching a spot that looks like it could hold bass. Big bass tend to spook easier. Probably the reason they lived long enough to get big.

Also try making yor bait bigger. You will get less bites but more quality fish.

Clancy W

Are you fishing from the bank or a boat ? Bank fishing really makes it harder to catch bigger fish because you are so limited to access parts of the lake where the bigger fish may hang out.

Could be that you are fishing a water with stunted bass. There are plenty around me that only seem to yield skinny bass, pike, and sunnies.  If there are any people living on the lake, they likely don't fish, as evidence by their winterized boats sitting on shore in the summer. I know of one that fits this description, a little lake called School Section, where it is literally impossible for a Senko to hit bottom w/o a tiny bass inhaling it first. Some of these smaller, untapped northern waters are fished so little that an predator/prey imbalance occurs and it results in stunted, underfed bass.

Read into Selective Harvest on how to possibly prevent this.

ive been wondering if my part of wisconsin is cursed in not having any big bass, my biggest bass this year is in my avatar, and its just over 16" and even tho he was a fattie, im guessing weighs around 2 1/2 pounds my biggest i have ever caught was 18 1/2" and probly 3 sumthin pounds... the average size of fish i catch is 12-13" well, what are your guys' average and whats your Personal Best?

Yes, but thats what ya get for living in Wisconsin.  The growing season in your area in very short. Where I live in California its almost non stop. Maybe 2 months in winter is all we miss.

Are you fishing from the bank or a boat ? Bank fishing really makes it harder to catch bigger fish because you are so limited to access parts of the lake where the bigger fish may hang out.

    I do agree, even though one of my PB's came from the bank.

Are you fishing from the bank or a boat ? Bank fishing really makes it harder to catch bigger fish because you are so limited to access parts of the lake where the bigger fish may hang out.

i was a bank fisherman, we bough a boat and i got to go once, i caught some fish offshore near a crappie crib and a floating dock, i caught 5 or so and hooked a few more, not a fish i hooked was under 14" and one i hooked (and lost)on a series 6 crank was 17" easy... that was just one day though, i figured i got lucky, does fishing out of a boat make that big of a difference?

Yeah it does. How much of the lake can you fish from shore vs the boat? Big difference. Get a kayak or something small.

You are really limited when fishing from the bank. Some of the places I fish are so wooded that you can't even get to a lot of the banks.

I feel like it's easier to fish from the bank when fishing small ponds so I would try that if you haven't already.

I fish from the bank primarily, but I still love fishing. Boat fishing would be amazing, but you gotta work with what you have.

The only problem would probably be convincing your parents to let you go in a boat by yourself.

at my home lake it sounds just like yours with largemouth. a 3lbs fish is great, even a 2lbs though there are way better out there. the average is more like 14"-15" though. we make up for it for having such awesome smallmouth fishing though i can usually slam the green fish good

Are you fishing from the bank or a boat ? Bank fishing really makes it harder to catch bigger fish because you are so limited to access parts of the lake where the bigger fish may hang out.

i was a bank fisherman, we bough a boat and i got to go once, i caught some fish offshore near a crappie crib and a floating dock, i caught 5 or so and hooked a few more, not a fish i hooked was under 14" and one i hooked (and lost)on a series 6 crank was 17" easy... that was just one day though, i figured i got lucky, does fishing out of a boat make that big of a difference?

That's a big YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah it does. How much of the lake can you fish from shore vs the boat? Big difference. Get a kayak or something small.

Great advice.

That's one of my goal for 2011, build a fishing kayak.