To me a big bass is 20 pounds or up and a really big bass is 40 pounds and up. I landed one 40 pounder in my life and don't know many people who have landed more than a few (in the last 10 years).
I think the biggest bass I've heard of over the past few years on the South Cape/Vineyard area has been high 50's; tournomount winners seem to be 40-50 pound fish.
If you read Daignauglt's book I think he cites his wife as having only caught 2 or 3 bass over 50 pounds in all their time on the outer Cape.
I wasn't fishing seriously in the good old days of the 60's and 70's, but I'm not sure that we were rolling in a surfeit of monsters back then as much as we were rolling in a larger average fish.
Reading all the stories; talking to people, etc., rememberering what I saw back in the 70's I think that 30-40 pound bass were a lot more common then which helpedthe occasional 60 pounder stand out. Also; I wonder how many of those big fish stacked on a beach are simply C&R'd now or never fished for due to our 1 fish limit.
In those days, Daignauglt and friends would stay the night on the beach, loading up their coolers w/ 500 pound of fish for sale. Under today's circumstances and limits, 1 fish on the beach and your done. How mnay of those hard core expert surfcasters really stay out all night these days if they have just pulled in a 30 or 40 pounder?
Also; someone posted last year the size/age stat's for stripers - as I recall a 16 year old fish was a 45" 40 pound fish. 1997 - 16 is 1981; the nadir of stripers on our coasts. I'm not sure what year was a good young of year one; perhaps 86 or 88; but add 16 years to that to see when the 40 pound schools will swarm again.
Also I suspect we have to factor in more fishing pressure in the 90's than in the 70's. Both the commercial pressure and the recreational pressure contributes to accidental mortality which culls out the fish as they get older.
L.