I don't know if this has ever been posted before...but I just read how Mike Long caught his 20 pound 12 ounce bass at Lake Dixon a while back and it's a great story.

You can read it here:
http://espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing/s/f_fea_bass_long.html

Here's a portion of the article:

A half-hour would pass, with Long crouched as low as he could, the line absolutely still and the bruiser bass inching slowly toward the sinking swimbait that had long settled on the lake's floor. Then 45 minutes.

"It took an hour for her to get all the way in," he said. "I made everything calm and quiet, like I wasn't there. The water had been a little choppy for a while, so I could just see her black shadow."

Later the water would glass over, and Long could see the fish "perfectly."

"I tightened up the line and shook the bait once, and I watched her go 45 degrees," he said. "And I shook it a second time, just gave it a pop, and then she went as vertical as she could go and I remember my rod was just going toward the water. And I thought, 'The boat's moving.'

"Then I realized, 'Oh, man, she's hit it,' and I just swung. I looked out and a saw a flash and I knew I'd hooked her. And I remember saying to myself, 'Here we go again, here we go again.'"

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I learned a thing or two from this one...