I'm no biologist, so I won't comment on the actual bass other than I see them vary in color and markings from place to place.
In terms of the water quality, obviously the charles is very dirty. Even without human pollution, the charles is going to be way different than a kettle pond on the cape. One is a flowing drainage system that has stagnant areas as well as areas that with a good amount of flow. Sediment is constantly being transported down river, not to mention pollution.
Kettle ponds are often spring fed, but not always. Even when they have streams dumping into them the sediment load is minimal. Kettle ponds can get real deep and be stratified in terms of temperature, which has a strong influence on nutrients in the water, which in turn dictates what kind of organisms live and thrive there, which in turn has a large influence on the food availability for fishies....
I'm rambling, but a river and a kettle pond are very very different.
