thanks much,
smaller baits will and do catch fish for sure and when it's sunny and flat or post cold front sometimes downsizing can be a key. however we do tend to use larger baits because of the forage of big suckers,whitefish,tullibees,and pike as well as generally bigger avg sized fish. downsizing is more towards flashers,show girls,blue fox or mepps #5-6,buchertail 600,harrassers,dancing raiders,7" gramas,straight raiders,etc.
everyday we go out we are looking for,trying/hoping for 50"+ fish and are generally always around fish of that calibur and bigger daily.
also the bigger silouette,more flash and vibs allow us to cover ground faster looking for aggressive fish as we got a lot of acreage and spots .some guide days we may cover 35 miles of lake 1 way hitting 12-20 prime spots quickly coming and going.
for the most part the lakes you listed other than long legged a 50" fish is more of a rarety than the norm with 34-42" the avg and 44-48" a good fish.a couple 50's a season,maybe.not that there aren't or haven't been 50's caught but would i go there specifically to target them,no. great action and nice fish but not the top end.so generally no you wouldn't be reducing avg size of the fish you boat,most likely increase the number of bites.
bigger avg size fish,bigger baits,bigger fish to a certain degree.
more numbers per acre,more competion,leads towards smaller baits a good choice also.and just plain and simple some lakes it is a idiocrycrasy that the fish prefer smaller baits.
done well on predators and squirkos at times but ya they love to chase glide baits,good locators.
when ever you have alot of cold fronts,cooler than avg water temps,less than normal weed cover,and most importantly most of the forage moving out over open water you will get more suspension going on and thats undoubtably what you encountered last season.
tough to fish suspended fish here,lots of water,the breaks ya and at times we have been noticing alot of fish at 18-24' off structure holding to move up at optimum times and those are the off structure fish we tend to target.
good luck!!