I once asked Frank Woolner that question. He stated that the best bass fisherman knows how to use all the methods there are to take bass. The best are not relagated to just trolling wire or using live bait or just ch#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g a plug. The best know how to do it all and don't measure a man's place in the best because he catches this many fifties or that many forties because a lot of the best just catch a hell of a lot of fish, big and small.
I knew a few of the guys now gone and worshipped on this board and many others. Woolner, Gibbs, Murat, Perry, McArdle, Williams and many others now gone or who still quietly ply thier trade in the dark of night and say nothing. Some of these greats never took a fifty yet they could always produce. Money had a lot to do with pushing a man to go to extremes and therefore be noted as one of the best.
My personal opinion is that for just as many that we note today as being great there more who were just as good or better and kept thier mouths shut and shunned notoriety.
But if pressed it would have to be Laine, Chiarrapo (who incidently put more fish on the beach and eventually to the market than Laine ever did) and an old friend of mine Dave Kosewski of Falmouth, who only fishes for money and always did but quietly goes about his business putting lots of big fish each year on fish market or contest scales.
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