I personally don't see anything wrong with what you are doing as far as keeping the fish, there are millions of people keeping Bass everyday. I don't think it sounds bad that you say ''I swear it's cheating'', I say that sometimes when I'm catchin fish like nothin, hell, if I see someone else getting into the fish (that I don't even know) I'll call them a cheater just to get a little humor going.
Some fishermen are catch and release only (pretty sure you knew already), so they don't realize that the people eating fish were probably born and raised to do so, I know I was, nobody ever gave me guidance on releasing trophy size Largemouth, but I do now, same with big native Rainbows, I only release Trout (nowadays) because no matter how you fix it, it still tastes like a Got-damn Trout.
The reason why I brought the legalities up is because I have never once seen a spot right below a gate in the river that was legal to fish, usually one has to walk past the gates that also border the water (usually the gates extend 100').