The smallmouth bass

The smallmouth bass is the fish. If you're in Connecticut and you haven't pulled one of these little fighters up you haven't been on Candlewood Lake. "It's hard to say where the smallmouths hangout," says Mike from Candlewood Bait and Tackle. "They're just everywhere."

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection in Connecticut is responsible for stocking the ponds and lakes across the state. They're funded by the sale of fishing permits and stock trout into the local aquatics. They don't even bother with the smallmouth because there's so many of them.

Unlike their largemouth cousins, the smallmouth bass prefers shallow water with a rocky or gravel bottom. They populate lakes and streams in the masses and around winter time recede to the deep, backwaters for protection from frost.