I have cut the fins & tail off small BG & LMB for a few yrs now.My thinking is a little different than esshup's.A wounded fish doesn't require a bigger LMB to expend anywhere near the energy toeat it,thus its a bonus meal.And yes,I have caught them up to a week later in my pond.It's rare,though.My pond was shocked a few weeks ago,but no fin cut fish were present.I cut bass up to 8" & BG up to 6".Hopefully, I have bass big enough to eat them; if not my channel cats might.
I am no expert, But JC 3 said he was trying to have a TROPHY BG pond, All the research I have done says you should have a heavy stunted bass population and bass over 14 inches should be taken out, So esshup's advice to remove the BG and force the bass to feed and use energy (reduce size) to feed on other BG would probably be the correct advise. Now if your goals were trophy bass, then by all means it makes sense to feed them as much as possible and let them burn as few calories as possible doing it..So when it comes down to it, IMHO your goals will probably dictate how you should handle the situation.
