Food or Future?
In the Pan or Back into the Pond?
Robert Fulton a.k.a. The RiverGeezer
Congratulations, you’ve caught a big bass (or bluegill or crappie or….) and now you have a choice: Do you want to take the fish home and eat it or do you want the chance to catch it again and let it pass on those genes?
When the water temperature gets into the 60s here in the South the female bass looks for nests, made and guarded by hopeful males, to drop her eggs. And she has lots of them— from 2,000 to 5,000 per pound of body weight. And you know how many of those eggs will survive to become bass of 10 inches? Five.
So, as you’re admiring that big female—males rarely get more than 2 pounds in ponds— you’ve just caught, you realize what a rare survivor she is. And let’s say your bass is a five-pounder, which is a good bass. She has to eat 10 pounds of fish, crayfish, frogs, etc., to gain a pound, so that means she needs 50 pounds of forage to maintain her weight and even more when she’s gravid (full of eggs).
Let’s
discuss sight casting to bedding bass.
Yes, it’s fairly easy to toss a jig or plastic worm into the
middle of the nest and yank out the male who’s guarding the nest or
the larger female who’s laying her eggs.
Does pulling the fish from the nest stress the fish?
What do you think?
You’re pregnant with 25,000 eggs and you’re jerked out of
your environment into an alien one.
Yes, that causes stress.
One of the comments I hear from the nest fishermen, “The bass’ll go back to the nest so what’s the big deal?” That depends. If you have a buck, male bass, guarding eggs, what do you think happens as soon as he’s removed from the nest? Right, all those bluegill hanging around the nest’s perimeter dive in and gobble bass eggs. That’s why nature has the buck guarding the nest. When the guard is gone, so are the eggs.
Forget the questionable practice of fishing the nest—Is it sporting to shoot a hen quail hatching her eggs?—the damage to the female caused by her “delicate” condition can be acute. Certainly more so than if she were not carrying eggs. The lactic acid that builds rapidly in the muscles of warm-water fish like bass can be fatal if the fish has to fight too long or is kept out of the water for more than a couple of minutes. And are you really that desperate to catch a fish?
We often fish the spawn for bream (bluegill, shell-crackers, red ears, and all the many hybrid crosses), because the fish are often quite numerous and some have to be removed (eaten) to prevent overcrowding and growth stunting; but when I catch a really big example of the species, back into the pond it goes.
A typical one-acre farm pond here in the South will have one large female bass who lays her eggs in numerous nests. She doesn’t put all her eggs in one basket. She is the queen and if you enjoy having a supply of little bass, she needs to be allowed to pass on her genes. And you want her genes because not all bass are equal. Those which grow to a large size obviously have what it takes to do so. Most of her kin are eaten early in their lives by larger fish, bullfrogs, snakes, turtles, herons, ospreys, ‘coons, otters, and people.
A two to three pound bass tastes better, usually, than a five pound or larger one. A large bass is a long-lived rarity that deserves to continue living and assuring the future of her species. Sure, take that “grip’n grin” photo, but put the fish back in her habitat quickly.
You and your children will enjoy catching her year after year. And she will grow larger.
You can contact The RiverGeezer at: rvrgzr@aol.com