Shawn recounted the time when he checked out a lake of female only Florida LMB. To his surprise, all the oldest bass were tightly clustered around 9 to 9.5 lb in size, nothing larger. Apparently bass are motivated to eat & grow in order to have a better shot of reproducing, but when that isn't possible they just stop growing at a certain point.
I would challenge Shawn's conjecture. One must first determine whether the number 1 most limiting factor was at play. Was forage the limiting factor? In ponds where reproduction occurs, the largest bass are generally smaller than 9 lbs and the primary cause that they stop growing is that the food is limited. Being able to reproduce doesn't help them grow any larger.
Swingle found that where there is abnormal overweight of BG that LMB may not be able to recruit. Under these conditions, LMB are able to grow 2lbs a year. Consider a 1 acre BOW where 10 Female LMB at 2 lbs each are stocked and have no mortality. There is no LMB reproduction and these fish in theory might achieve 10 lbs in 4 years. If the carrying capacity of the BOW is 100 lbs of LMB they could only grow heavier if you began to harvest them. The mortality would allow for further growth, but if they continued to live, they would get leaner and a little longer as time goes by ... but no heavier.
I am confident that if the referenced BOWs had successful recruitment, both average and ultimate weights would be less than noted.
