Where Have All the Good Bass Gone - Part 2

The Upper Thames River Conservation Authority got back to me regarding the questions and comments I had sent them about the lack of smallmouth bass in the Thames River over the last few years. I'll copy their followup to me below.

"FYI - sampled two locations between Hwy 7 and St. Marys today - water temperature doesn't seem to have much effect on my fishing success. Sm bass were fairly abundant at both with at least 4 year classes observed. At one time we had at least 10 lbs. of bass in the bucket with three that would have been pushing 3 lb. Good news in terms of bass population but bad news in terms of water levels. We are normally only able to catch the smaller ones, while the bigger ones escape to deeper water that is non-existent this year, and it's not even the middle of July yet! This could make them vulnerable to a variety of types of predation."

It would seem, that the smallmouth populations are doing okay in the North Branch outside of the city. I'm still convinced there is a problem with bass inside the city limits. I'm going to continue to contact relevant groups to see about this.  I'd like to be able to land large bass within London again.