It's sad that so many state agencies have no real clue when it comes to fisheries management. Most states need to take lessons from Texas. Their bass fisheries bring in billions of $$!!
Where I live, in Rhode Island, they have a hands-off management philosophy. They believe the best management is no management at all.
Connecticut does a slightly better job, but even they have made some serious mistakes. One lake near me used to have a great LMB population, and it also had some slammer smallies. I've personally caught 2 smallies from there over 5 1/2 lbs.
These days, if you can catch a LMB over 14 inches, you're doing good. And you have to wade through several dozen 10-12 inch bass to catch that one 2 lb. fish.
Smallies? They're nowhere to be found these days.
This all happened after they instituted a new 16 inch minimum length for this lake several years ago. Way too many little fish now.
Another lake in this area used to have a great bass population. It was one of my favorite lakes to night fish. It used to take 15+ lbs. to win a tourney there at night. And then the DEP introduced Walleye. The bass population is now feeble and small. We had a night tourney there this past year and it was won with less than 7 lbs. for 5 fish. The guy who took 2nd, had one fish that weighed 6 1/2 lbs. And we hear this same stort over and over again from any clubs that are crazy enough to hold a tourney there. Very sad