To me its pretty obvious why it is. You are eliminating harvest. Due to the type of angler that generally fishes special reg sections, you're also reducing accidental mortality. This equals more fish. More fish = less food per fish = more small and average ones and less monsters.
Actually I see that as the more "natural" situation, a carrying capacity situation. I see it as general regulations artificially increase the size and decrease populations, and more restrictive regulations allow it to return to the natural state. The real question is which way we'd rather have it, size or numbers?Personally I like numbers more than size, but thats just me.
Thats all very believable on brown trout streams, and the more famous brook trout streams like Big Spring and BFC. But is it true on more typical brook trout streams? I don't know. My guess would be no, because they don't see enough pressure or harvest under general regs to have the size increase/population decrease effect, so they're essentially always in the "carrying capacity" mode. But if you had a highly pressured stream it probably would hold true. Finding a way to encourage pressure and harvest might actually be beneficial to the size in many cases, kind of like reverse special regs. But as I said, I'm for numbers over size. Thats just my thoughts, Mike if there's any data out there I'd find it interesting.
