Big Fish or more knowledge?

Been struggling a little bit with a question. What's more important, catching more 20"+ Smallmouth or increasing my overall Indiana Stream knowledge?

This bizare year of stream fishing for Smallmouth Bass has led me to seek out new areas to fish. Because of plentiful rain in the spring and early summer, Mike and I often drove far and wide in search of clearer water so Mike could catch his 'topwater fish'. In the process, the 'what's down there syndrom awoke and I set this goal for 30 Indiana streams this year. I only counted streams where we caught a Smallmouth bass.

I know a couple or three stretches where 20" fish are plentiful enough that if I just pounded them every time out, by the end of the year, I could get 10-20 or even more.

Though I want to catch massive smallies, exploring a new stretch, and pitting my observation skills to the test are very, very enjoyable. So while I still would like to catch plenty of 20"'s. I'll take my chances and hope to come across them in microflows and dinky streams across Indiana.

People, I've discovered some amazing new places to fish for smallmouth bass. No, I won't tell you.

BTW, #30 fell today. We scouted 3 new micro flows. Two had limited water, the third was great, but our downstream wade upset the SMB quite a bit in the clear water. Finally, the creek bottomed out into the Tippecanoe river where my second cast with a buzzbait yielded a 17.25" Smallmouth Bass. 30, but not the stream I intended. Unfortunately we did not bring our kayaks and they are needed to fish the fast, sometimes deep Tippecanoe River. We got booted off the creek by a land owner.

We hit another large nearby creek and found one of the fishiest looking riffle-pool, riffle-pool, etc creeks ever. Fishing was slow, everything came topwater, but mostly it was only dinks playing I ended up with 11 and Mike 8. Did nab the lone 16"er on a Super Spook JR.