Please welcome Eyoyo Underwater Fishing Cameras.https://amzn.to/3siEgXn
For years we were taught and practiced tossing the smaller fish back to "let them grow" what we were doing was in effect the opposite of wise practice. Environment, forage, and last but foremost GENITICS are what determine size. Those monster bulls were selected by nature to futher propagate the species. Take a picture and let the big ones go. A fillet from a 7 1/2 or 8'' Gill tastes just as good and in over half a century of fishing I've seen way too many great fisheries destroyed because of ignorance or callus greed. Spin
Yes I have read such studies, and others regarding fishing pressure and harvest and it's impact on overall populations and size/growth. There are instances where balances are so affected that whole species populations were lost or detrimentally affected permanently. I bred tropical fish on a fair sized scale for quite a few years specializing in the various Killie fish species, these are relatively short lived fish so you many generations in a relatively short period of time. You get a compressed view of genetic impact on overall size of the various species and it's huge. There can be other factors but non as important. Maybe the best way to express it is the way I put it to folks around my cabin up in the U.P. a few decades ago - Size breeds size, it's an overriding rule of nature. Makes no difference if you're talking cows, horses, birds, people, or fish, size breeds size. An over simplification but still relevant. Spin
"and they said the average size lake trout was about 3 feet to 4 feet and the smallmouth were in the 6 to 7 pound range".Funny how those smallmouth shrink to 3 to 4 pounds when they meet a scale. It takes alot of smallmouth to go 4 pounds, let alone 5. I've had guys tell me they had a 5 pound smallmouth in their livewell, and when weighed it fell a Little short of 4 pounds. You just have to take reports of huge fish with a grain of salt unless you know the source to be very credible.