Its been so long since I've posted here, I had to create a new account because I couldn't remember my old one. To me it seems that the small lakes we have associated big bass and swimbaits with are passing their prime. At least in my situation. I live in Santa Rosa so you can guess where I'm talking about. The lake was drained, scraped clean, and refilled in the 80's with clean water, florida bass, and trout. Those first few generations of florida bass had little competition, clean water, and a trout rich diet. Needless to say, those bass grew and grew, and in the mid to late 90's there were giants. Today there are still bass, a few big ones here and there, but nothing like it was. The lake is scumbo garbage dirty, and stagnant. No more trout are planted, and people have raped the lake of panfish. When I was a kid, (mid 90's) you could catch bluegill till you were blue in the face, just thousands of them, everywhere!! After years of people filling 5 gallon buckets full of them, they are nearly non-existent. Back in 05-06 I caught a few toads at night on the big top water. Not much, action there the last few years. The lake is so small and overfished, over polluted, I don't bother much anymore, however, this thread is getting me re-motivated to make it happen. Those old big bass from the 90's likely have died off, and there isn't much happening to keep the existing fishery healthy. I would love for DFG to drain the lake and start it all over. I'm a big aquarium guru, and I know how important clean healthy water is for growing fish. With the lack of rain, our lakes aren't getting water changes. As the lake levels drop, dirty water becomes more and more concentrated, which is bad. I think the larger lakes are going to be the places producing most big fish in the future, and even then I don't think the bass in those larger reservoirs will attain true giant status (15lb+). The thing about those small lakes is the density of stocked trout per acre and florida strainers. Plentiful, high nutrition forage, with genetically superior bass. I too have been wondering how Paul Duclos fell off the face of the planet? Still fishing???