To be clear, our mission was to sample, not to remove fish. We captured quite a few bass and many were released. Part of the mission was to analyze the fishery and make recommendations to keep them on track for growing big fish. It will be their job to continue removing slot bass via angling. It's been an issue with this lake for years, by the way.
They do such a great job keeping the lake fertile that they grow so much small forage fish that the lake is propped up to grow 1-14" bass. With that management style, removing small bass is critical. Propping up a lake with little forage fish leads to growing medium size bass which tend to crowd since life in the food lane is so good for them...temporarily.
The biggest challenge for a lake such as this one is to grow as many bass beyond 17" as you can. That takes at least two years in an existing lake (although many of us typically beat that in new lakes). Once a fish hits 17", it's life changes. It feeds differently, it behaves differently and lives in different parts of the lake than those smaller cousins.
