For LMB overpopulated waters, which is most, harvest is a key management tool. Take out the underperformers, throw back the healthiest. General rule of thumb in the South is below 14 inches, harvest, unless it is fat & aggressive. Above 14 inches, don't harvest, unless it is underweight.
But there seem to be two schools of thought about really small LMB, say, below 8 inches. . . .
I tend to throw back LMB under 8 inches, but maybe I shouldn't. What say you?
I take the under 14" to be just what it says ... everything under 14". When one starts to make exceptions then the condition is set to develop a population of small LMB ... a condition that is harmful to large bass. Small LMB cannot provide forage as efficiently as BG can. Now if you want to take a less than 8" LMB and cripple it, by all means, make it an ineffective predator and easy prey but if you allow them to grow they are going to intercept much more prey than they ultimately provide.
I think the thing to remember is that an 8 lb LMB doesn't eat a greater number of BG than an 8" LMB. Because they prey on BG that have a proportional relative size it takes the same number to sustain both. But the 8" LMB gets fed first because BG must outgrow the 8" LMB predation before they can be prey for the 8 pounders.
LMB recruitment is overrated if someone is trying to grow trophies. It just isn't required. If one has no recruitment (except that controlled by the stocking of select young adults) then it is much easier to grow trophies because the production of BG YOY feeds only those fish that are trophy path. If it seems expensive to be in the position of having to stock LMB recruits ... consider the alternative costs of time and money to feed and manage excessive recruitment. It's a fine line to carry a balance that only recruits the goldilocks number of LMB. Once it goes one way or the other momentum takes it further. Too many LMB recruits is self sustaining ad infinitum but lack of LMB recruitment is not self-sustaining. So stocking LMB adults to obtain trophy path recruits is important when this condition exists... but if too many are added ... one will swing the other way and over recruitment defines the battle from that point forward.
