Something that always irked me about this topic is the guys who are always stumping against the folks who take bass for the dinner table, these same guys will take a boatload of bluegill or a limit of some other species and still have the brass to criticize someone else... With that said I don't think we have a population shortage of bluegill,crappie,catfish or any other species unless mother nature is the culprit in their demise... I believe an earlier poster referred to the creel as a guideline and I think if we take fish as specified by that and let the biologist tell us what will work then we won't be responsible for the downfall of the bass population.