Like several of the more seasoned posters (notice I didn't say older) like myself I can remember when the fishing was really good on lakes like Lilly, Candlewood and yes even Zoar back in the late 70's .Not what some are calling good now but REALLY GOOD. I have pics of tournies that had the winning fish strung up on a "Lunker Board" Back then we didn't realize what the impact of killing our resource was going to have 20 years later. Thankfully people were educated in time and we were able to turn it around. Can you imagine what we would have now if back then we didn't stop the killing of bass. We would all be standing in streams fishing for 6 inch trout and our grandkids would be asking "Grandpa what's a Bass" and we'd have to take out a pic and show em/her cause there would be so few around that they would probably never even be targeted for sport.
People that need to harvest fish for the freezer need to be educated to the harm they are actually doing. I see a pic of 6 DEAD 4 plus pound fish and just get disgusted that some guy feels the need to kill trophies like that Take 2 lber's for the freezer and leave the big ones. The diff in meat isn't that much but the difference it makes for our future of bass fishing is enormous
Im just glad that an 8 lber was lucky enough to get free or she'd be DEAD too.