Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding LMB on Beds; BG (& CC) Off Feed

I'm pretty certain my LMB are on the spawning beds right now. Water temps got into the upper 60's last week, the pre-spawn feeding frenzy seems to have dissipated, and Sunday I caught 2 14" (male) LMB in 3' - 4' of water with the tail damage I associate with having cleaned out their beds.

Now comes the interesting part. Starting yesterday, continuing today, absolutely ZERO BG over 4" in length showed up to eat feed - just smaller fingerlings. I had been getting BG up to perhaps 7" at feeding time, most of whom did not appear to be especially sexually mature.

Also, the number of CC showing up to feed dropped from 12 to 15 previously down to 1 yesterday and none today.

I speculate that the larger BG and the CC are busy harrassing LMB on the beds, trying to pick up some bass egg/fry protein. Anybody ever see anything like this during the bass spawn before? What do you think could be the cause?

These are fun even if we are just guessing. Often just before BG start the pre spawn move to find beds they become less interested in eating and more in spawning at least the bigger ones. This continues in the males through the spawn to swim up of the yoy. Two weeks ago we went through the same thing and by this weekend it should have passed until the next spawn. I think the major egg/fry predators of LMB are the non-spawning small BG. They (small BG) are also the major predator of the BG eggs/fry. Sorry CC are something I don't know much about wrt this situation. Could they be spawning.

Try this link.

http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=001787