Boy... I missed this somehow years ago. In case this comes up again, and for people searching this topic and wondering in the future about the same thing, I believe I have talked to the MDNR Fisheries Division and Law Division about this in the past. Don't quote me on this but the gist of it was if you catch a legal bass you can do whatever you want with it. If you were to keep undersized bass, that would be a violation.
The MDNR can issue collector's permits, but these are generally for sciences and research purposes most often. They may (probably) not issue such a permit for someone who just wants to keep some bass in a fish tank though if you are in college for natural resources and it was part of your class work - I'd have a professor write a letter - that might be something they would support. They are interested in helping people who want to go in to natural resources.
I have had several friends keep keeper-sized bass in very large aquariums before, sometimes for several years. All of them talked about interesting and very entertaining observations. Yes, it was a pain at times to deal with very large aquariums and a large one is best for a large gamefish or two. You will find they can eat VERY large prey and sometimes each much more than you would expect!! A friend of mine tried putting all kinds of large prey in his tanks and invariably, if the bass didn't eat them (smallmouth and largemouth) right away, the prey was generally gone by the next morning!
We had many interesting conversations over this for the few seasons this was done.
