The tail clipped LMB won't starve if it's pellet trained. If I can find the picture I will post it. I rotenoned a pond for a guy that raised LMB for the Oriental live market. He'd raise roughly 5,000# of LMB in a 1.5 ac pond. Took him about 18 months to go from 5" to 1.5#. This LMB somehow had it's tail cut off right behind the anal.secondary dorsal fin. It was about 1.5# and was able to evade the seine 4x when they seined the pond.

He had me rotenone the pond to kill any stragglers before they stocked the new batch of LMB.

As for the RBT in Ca. They didn't stock them to feed the bass. They stocked them for people to catch. The RBT that were stocked were around 10"-12", that's why the HUGE swim baits were invented. Lake Jennings in San Diego County, Dixon Lake in Escondido,Castaic Lake, etc. all received supplemental trout stockings once a month from roughly October until April (IIRC). I used to live in Oceanside, Ca and was only 25 miles from Dixon but never fished it.

A 25-1 was foul hooked at Dixon back in 2005. I don't know if it was ever caught again. It was a female that was getting ready to spawn. It was caught a few years (I think) earlier at 21 and change, they know it was the same fish because it had a black spot on it's right gill flap.