M2A2,
I'm from the south (Texas to be more exact) but I can offer a couple of comments. First, by your description of large BG, your lake is probably in pretty good shape, relatively well balanced, and that means that someone is taking out a good number of LMB, otherwise they would tend to overpopulate, stunt, and the BG would be generally small. That's a big generalization, but probably close to describing your lake.
Second, and on this point you may not find what you are looking for, many of us on this forum have seen first hand the effects that fishing pressure has on the catchability of LMB and by extension possibly to other predator fish as well. We have even had reliable reports of private 50 acre lakes that have experienced significant declines in the catchability of LMB as the bass mature and are subject to fishing pressure. Some of us attribute some of that tendency to Florida strain LMB, which in all likelyhood you do not have.
Just about all small bodies of water that contain LMB will at some point or other need to have LMB, especially the small ones, harvested. You need to find the right balance between that need to harvest and fishing pressure that allows the LMB (and other predators) to be enjoyed by all lake owners.
My recommendation to you is to set up a slot limit on bass and get general agreement or baselining of that rule for all lake owners/fishers....bass below that slot must be harvested and karger fish must be released. Picking the slot or size limits is a little bit tricky and I'm sure you can get some expert advise on that, but I really recommend that you think about this as a long term management tool for your lake. A possible starting point is to remove any bass under 14 inches and release all others...it would be just as important to "remove" as it is to "release".
