I have thought about the whole eating bass thing for awhile now including largemouths and have come to this conclusion.

I personally think what makes a fish taste good or bad is its primary diet and not water temps. Catch a laker out of lake michigan where it's primary diet is very oily baitfish and they taste pretty bad in my book.........like inedible bad with rolls of oily fat on them. When I kept hearing about how good the lake trout were in canoe country I had a tough time believing it.

Some of the best fish I have eaten were largemouths and they came out of strip mines. Now some may say pure clean water and there may be some truth to that but I think it was because these bass ate nothing but crawdads. Same with smallies. I think smallies are so good because they have an affinity with crayfish. Can't prove it but I strongly suspect it is true. Some of the best eating saltwater fish also prey heavily on shellfish. Hogfish and mutton snapper come to mind.