Sandman, can you tell us more about the vegetation and structure in the lake? We have a similar thing happen in our pond due to too much vegetation. Basically the overabundance of vegetation (aka structure) makes predation tougher for the 15"+ LMB, it also means we have a very significant number of YOY LMB that survive every year due to all of the hiding places available making it perpetually bass heavy. I see in you intital post you wrote: "full of cypress trees, lots of structure". In my humble opinion it would help if some of the structure were removed and LMB over 16-17" were protected, at that size they become significant predators on the smaller LMB and should be released. The primary problem that I see that perpetuates this boom and crash cycle is probably too much structure in the lake.
