According to tournament veteran and fishing guide Roger Bacon, some of the biggest bass do indeed come from deep water, but they're not easy to catch.

"These bass are big for a reason," he remarked. "They avoided being caught when they were younger, and as they get older, they just don't move around a lot and become more reluctant to take a lure."

To get to some of the deeper bass, Bacon recommends, work a Senko lure. "It's a slow-moving bait," he said, "but it has such a lifelike action that it can really grab the attention of bass that might not otherwise take a lure. It's one of those lures you just throw out and let it do its own thing."

If currents are too strong to permit freelining a plastic bait, crankbaits slow-rolled over structure can pay big dividends. If you run the river channel and notice fish suspended over sunken logs and other structure, there's a pretty fair chance that a lot of those are bass. Fishing with a crankbait like a Fat Free Shad or a Bomber 9A is a savvy means of locating those fish.

Actually, trolling these types of areas isn't a bad idea -- and it's an approach that certainly allows you to cover more ground. Simply rig your crankbaits in rod holders, let the line out so that you can reach the desired depth and move your boat slowly. The hardest part will be learning the correct trolling speed. Start as slow as you can go; gradually increase your speed.

"Breakaway" rigs are also effective for trolling, and will enable you to use soft plastics like a Sassy Shad or other baitfish imitators. This requires using two rod-and-reel outfits: one to fish with and the other to get your bait down to the depth at which you want to fish.

Hook a soft plastic rigged on braided line; then, take a rod rigged with a 1-ounce weight attached to a swivel, and attach it to your line with a thin rubber band tied to the swivel and to the braid. Let the baited line out first, and then attach the rubber band and weighted line out once you have, say, 20 yards of line behind the boat. This will allow you to troll your bait freely a substantial distance behind the boat, and to adjust the depth at which it runs. Once you have a fish on, the pressure will cut the thin rubber band on the sharp, braided line and let you fight the fish freely.

Troll plastics slowly; you might want to start by using your trolling motor. If that's not doing the trick, speed things up a bit by switching to the big motor.

Another tactic that might seem totally offbeat, and that's certainly not one much employed in deep water, is known as "dead-worming." This involves anchoring out over a particular piece of structure, casting out a large soft-plastic worm on a Texas rig and letting it sit; raise it up and down gently every 20 seconds or so. The point is to let it sit so that the flow of the current moves the worm, perhaps enticing a hard-to-impress trophy bass to take a bite.