I'm gonna have to echo what everyone else said... more big fish are caught shallow because that is where we as fisherman are and because the big fish are probably up shallow feeding and therefore more catchable...I'm gonna use my 17 as an example... it was caught on a huge flat that at the time was about 10 feet deep, the nearest deep water(20-30 ft deep) was maybe a hundred yards away, but that just happened to be near where the main creek channel and a feeder channel meet. I am guessing that the fish was up on the flat feeding on crawdads(had a bright red mouth) and saw an easier meal in my trout(M.S. Slammer)...but she probably lives in that creek channel. Ive spent more than a few days at San Pablo throwing a 5 and 8 inch sinking Optimum off of points and letting sink to the bottom and retrieving slowly and it produced a 4.5 but that was only in 6 feet of water. This last time out(sunday) i even tried trolling the optimum over the creek channel with no luck... my own personal belief and i have no proof but I believe that somewhere along that creek channel lives a 20+ that more than likely has never seen a lure...due to circumstance beyond my control though it is hard for me to fish it like I would want... but ya just gotta keep on pluggin... boy that was longer than i thought..
Erik P.

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Pretending to be a swimbait fisherman since 2001.