Anyone actually interested in facts rather than rationalization might want to read the studies I linked to. As I have already stated more than once, these studies were NOT done on small impoundments such as the TWRA fee lakes, nor were they done on ponds like I manage: they were done on large public lakes. And they found a consistent and undeniable trend of steadily-decreasing bluegill size structure in lakes that had liberal or no limits on bluegill. And, when stricter limits were imposed, bluegill size began to improve almost across the board.

A couple years ago a guy who guides on the St. Johns River in Florida argued with/mocked me on this forum because I took offense at him keeping coolerfuls of big bluegill from that river. He claimed it was too big to be influenced by fishing pressure. I fished the St. Johns twice this year, once in early June and once in November; both times were with experienced guides who make their living on the river; the guide I had in November specializes in bluegill. The biggest fish we caught either trip was 9". But of course that had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that that river gets more bluegill fishing pressure in one day in the spring than any 100 small lakes in this country.

I lived in southern California from 1997 through 2007. I fished Lake Perris, which is a large reservoir, 1,800 acres at 80% of full pool, a handful of times. I caught several pound-class bluegill, but never learned the lake well enough to catch the big ones; but at that time, two-pounders were pretty common; as an example, I saw a guy catch a bluegill from the bank one day that would've gone twenty-four ounces if it weighed an ounce, and he had one that was easily two pounds or better in his fish basket (it covered most of the bottom of the basket). In my observation, two-pounders are no longer common there, nor are twenty-four-ouncers.

There's another lake out there, Lake Skinner, that right now is producing the kind of bluegill fishing that Perris was producing when I lived out there. And just on another website I'm a member of, there are multiple guys on there who regularly post photos of big messes of giant bluegill they took home to clean from Skinner. It's just a matter of time until the fishing in that lake slips into the category of, "Man, I remember what it used to be like on that lake."

Just as large reservoirs and rivers can be fished out for big bass, so can they be fished out for big bluegill. You can rationalize and claim otherwise but your argument holds about as much water as saying the earth is flat, because the science is already out there, proven by fisheries biologists. Don't twist it to justify your actions.