Keeping small bass is geared completely toward increasing the average size of the bass. Public waters often need very different regulations on largemouth than a private water body simply because they receive thousands of times as much fishing pressure. It is true that in some instances the governing agency has gone too far and implemented limits, such as trophy-only where anglers are only allowed to keep one bass over 20", for instance, that sometimes allow largemouth to become overcrowded; but no limit on small bass on a public lake is just begging for trouble.

At a minimum, if there are bluegill and redear of any size in those Alabama lakes where they're now having anglers keep all bass, there won't be for long.

It never ceases to amaze me how thoroughly many DNRs in this region of the country ignore bluegill and redear anglers when making regulations. Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania have all enacted new regulations within the past decade to improve bluegill angling in public waters...Meanwhile state biologists here in the South ignore all of the advances in fisheries science knowledge of bluegill from the past fifteen years and proceed on the assumption that bluegill anglers are stupid and will take whatever they give them; either that or they just don't care about bluegill and only manage for bass, as they're currently doing with the Alabama lakes alluded to above.