short fish

I really enjoyed the what have you learned post and I am now entering the winter- “what can i learn?” phase of the year. I have a question to post about short fish. Say you are fishing a backwater area and catching plenty of 12-14 inch fish but need some bigger keepers or a kicker. Do you..
a) fish the same area with larger lures?
b) fish the same area slower?
c) look for deeper cover/structure nearby?
d) go to an entirely different area?
e) keep doing the same thing and hope the percentages help you upgrade your catch?

I know we had a post with similar questions earlier but i wanted to refresh and see what everybody had to say.

JJ,

My call would be go deeper. This may mean look for deeper structure as you mentioned or it might be as simple as staying in same place but going to a heavier Spinnerbait or Jig, or trying a deeper diver crankbait. I think I would try to keep doing what I was doing because I am catching fish, however, I would just find a way to do it deeper.

You know I use a lot of crankbaits and the first thought would be slow down so the bait would sink farther. This often doesn’t work because it is moving too slow. This is why I would go heavier maybe even 1oz so I could keep the speed up and still go deep.

I am very interested in what everyone else thinks.

Come on Spring!

i guess i would say it depends on what time of the year you’re talking about?! I am suprised at how shallow big largemouth go in august-and how deep in the shallows they go. Flow and deep access are things i look for in transistion periods and flats in “normal” conditions ie: midsummer, midspring, and of course fall. Finding small changes in a flat will show you where your “flats biting” fish went and more times than not that’s where the bigger ones are, specially when the feeders are upstream of a ditch or something