Do you have any idea what a drop in the biomass bucket 5000 pounds is? Especially considering that a lot of guys fishing the OTW Cup are rod and reel commercials and those fish were going to market anyway.
A commercial can kill 95 bass/week 34" or better. A guy who limits out on a 20# per fish average kills almost a ton a week. One guy. The Mass commercial quota is a hair over a million pounds. 5000 pounds is 1/2 of 1% of what Mass commercials kill year after year, and probably a thousandth of the rec kill in this state alone. (which nobody really knows). A bunch of guys spread over 7 or more states kill 5000 pounds of bass over a 5 month tournament. And in your eyes, that's a slaughter?
And from your post, the part about guys "hunting" big bass day in and day out, I can see that you don't even have a clue about the rules--which allow one entrant to enter only one fish per week, and only count two fish for the tournament towards a club's total.