Just in case you haven't heard, this week the top competitive anglers in the country flock to Pittsburgh's rivers for FLW Outdoors' $2 million Forrest Wood Cup, including a $1 million prize for the winner. Team Kellogg's pro Dave Lefebre of Union City, Pa., is counting on a "home water" advantage.

Lefebre says the Three Rivers where the contest will be held -- on parts of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio -- contain quality fish.

"I'm just excited to go look at the old holes and feel out what's going on ... just having an understanding of how those fish work is what excites me," Lefebre said.

The real stars of this event, however, are the target fish inhabiting the rivers.

World-class anglers are masters of fish biology. To regularly catch big fish on demand in a competitive format, tournament fishermen must know where fish live, how they behave, and most importantly, what they eat.

Curiously, bass anglers as a group seem to have missed the lecture on fish taxonomy -- the classification of fish species.

Any ichthyologist knows that largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and spotted bass technically are not members of the bass family Percichthyidae. In Pennsylvania, white perch, white bass and striped bass are true bass. The fish competitive anglers seek are actually large members of the sunfish family Centrarchidae. But then, "Sunfish-masters" doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

Taxonomy aside, the three "bass" species sought by tournament anglers are wary, fighting fish that are just plain fun to catch.

Until the mid 1880s, smallmouth bass lived only in the Great Lakes and the Ohio River watershed. But as railroads opened up the West, smallmouth bass became a popular sport fish and were introduced throughout the United States.

Smallmouths are sometimes called "bronzebacks" because they have a brownish gold tint on their backs. Other identifying characteristics include a series of eight to 15 dark vertical bars on each side, a dorsal fin separated by a shallow notch, and an upper jaw that does not extend beyond the eye. Smallmouths can reach 24 inches in length; the state record exceeds 8 pounds.

Smallmouth bass prefer deeper, cooler water than largemouths and are most likely found in rocky areas with a bit of a current. In Pittsburgh's rivers, think deeper, moving pools behind large boulders.

Smallmouth spawn from May through early June when the water temperature reaches 60 to 70 degrees. Males create a circular nest in gravel or sand by fanning the area with their fins. Nests range from 14 to 30 inches in diameter and are usually at a depth of 3 or 4 feet. Several females lay eggs in each nest, depositing 2,000 to 7,000 eggs per pound of body weight. Eggs hatch in two to nine days depending on water temperature. Males guard the nests until the fry leave the nest five or six days after hatching.

The fry eat tiny crustaceans and graduate to aquatic insects, crayfish and small fish as they grow. Eggs and small fry are especially vulnerable to high water and flooding during spawning. Under ideal conditions, juvenile smallmouth bass can grow to 4 inches in their first summer.

Originally found in the Ohio River and Lake Erie watershed in Pennsylvania, largemouth bass are now found statewide in ponds, lakes and the slow moving sections of big rivers. They prefer warmer water with aquatic weeds, submerged stumps and logs and soft bottoms. They avoid rocky bottoms and water more than 20 feet deep. Most of the bass weighed in at the Forrest Wood Cup are likely to be smallmouths.

The largemouth bass, sometimes called "bucketmouth," has a huge mouth and eats almost anything it can swallow: fish, crayfish, frogs, snakes, small mammals, ducklings, small song birds that venture too close to the water's surface. Its upper jaw extends beyond the back edge of the eye socket.

Other identifying features include its robust body, a broad dark stripe running the length of each side of the body, and a dorsal fin that is so deeply notched it appears almost completely separated. Big largemouths can exceed 2 feet in length; the state record is over 11 pounds.

In spring and early summer, male largemouths fan circular spawning beds in sand, gravel or even mud. Nests can be up to 3 feet in diameter, typically rest in 1 to 4 feet of water, are within 8 feet of the shoreline and spaced at least 20 feet apart. Like smallmouth bass, several female largemouths spawn on each nest at a rate of 2,000 to 7,000 eggs per pound of body weight. After hatching, fry remain in the nest for about a week under the protection of the male. Then they rise into schools to feed, and the male continues to guard them for about a month.

In Pennsylvania, spotted bass occur primarily in the Ohio River. Though they can reach 18 inches, most spotted bass are much smaller. For that reason, there will provably be few in the winner's live well. Spotted bass are named for the rows of diamond-shaped spots that run the length of the body. They prefer long, deep pools of sluggish water. Spotted bass can often be found in areas that largemouth and smallmouth bass avoid.