“In this case, we want the good spawn that comes around every few springs, but don’t need huge spawns every single year,” said Oster. “To grow trophy-class bass, we want them to be able to get a meal anytime they want to, and not have to outrun 10 other fish to get there first for it.”

It’s possible, he says, that if all bass under 20 inches have to be released and too many fish overload the system for the available food, the 20-inch limit might have to be suspended for a while to get some of the smaller bass out.

“I don’t know that the environment would evolve to that,” said Oster. “But that’s one outcome that could develop under this type of management somewhere down the road.

“We keep close watch on growth rates, which signals us whether or not sufficient forage is available,” he said. “And if it slows too much, we’d considered changing the limits to get it back where it needs to be.”

As most anglers know, Kentucky’s approach to managing smallmouths and Kentucky “spotted” bass is quite a bit different than for largemouths.

In some cases, the 15-inch minimum is used for smallmouths. But in others, smallies are under an 18-inch limit, which is indeed a superb quality fish.

Trophy bass management is employed at only one state-owned lake. Cedar Creek has a one-fish daily creel and a 20-inch minimum-size limit.

“In lakes like Laurel and Cumberland, the potential for growing really big smallmouths plays a big role in the fishery we’re trying to maintain,” said Oster. “We don’t have that many lakes with cold-water habitat, so where we do, we want to provide a higher-quality opportunity.

“Laurel and Cumberland can grow those big smallmouths if we protect them with a higher size limit. And it seems that the majority of fishermen who are interested specifically in bronzebacks want to catch big ones. They aren’t interested in harvesting smaller fish for the table.”

The approach to spotted bass, which are present in most lakes, is tailored to the characteristic of the species as much as anything. Rarely will a spotted bass get much larger than 15 inches before its life comes to an end. A 15-inch size limit on spots would greatly reduce the chance of harvesting these fish before they die and fall out of the population.

For anglers who want a mess of fish to fry, allowing them to take spotted bass of any size gives that segment of the angling community the opportunity they enjoy.

“It’s use of a renewable resource that we encourage, since releasing spots doesn’t really help improve the quality of the fishery or effect reproduction for better or worse.

“We want anglers to catch and keep those Kentucky bass, which at times are the most aggressive bass and provide a lot of action,” Oster said.

People eat fish, and that’s a very good thing. Sometimes, it seems that the number of bass-fishing anglers is so high that if they all took home everything they legally could each time out, it would deplete the fishery.

But the likelihood of that actually occurring is very low.