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Appetizers!

Although the fishing near our cottage isn't great for big fish, there's an ample supply of rock bass, and they're tasty, too!

I've been told that rock bass eat the eggs of the 'more desirable' sport fish (i.e. walleye), and that it's good to remove them from such bodies of water. Does anyone have anything to add or change regarding this statement? Are rock bass like flies, in that it would take an unbelievable effort to exterminate their species (short of polluting the water)? Or is a harvest of 5-15 rock bass every weekend for a period of 4 months going to do some serious damage to a fish that may actually benefit the lake somehow? And I have no idea what the other x-hundred cottagers do in terms of rock bass fishing or killing. Say 10 rock bass per weekend, over 16 weekends, per cottage, times 300 cottages...that's 48,000 rock bass caught in one summer on one lake. Granted, I'm sure other fish eat them as well, and lots of cottagers probably don't fish for them...but yeah.

Any information on rock bass and their effects on the populations of "more desirable" sport fish?