As far as golden shiners (GSH) eating fish eggs, many species of fish eat fish eggs such as trout, bluegill, sunfishes. yellow perch, most minnow species on and on with others who eat fish eggs. Your shallow areas are good areas for spawning of GSH. It takes a pretty big LMB to eat a full grown GSH as 10"-12" long. Big bass anglers in Florida use large GSH as a favorite bait. If you want to grow LMbass then I would stock GSH and give them some good habitat to thrive. Because you are in TX the other good forage fish you should consider using for growing bass is the threadfin shad (TFS). As a side note the RES in my opinion have little benffit for growing bass because they are not a prolific spawner. RES benefit is they eat snails and help minimize parasites in the fish fillets. If I lived in TX and wanted to grow good numbers of LMB I would stock both GSH and threadfins. Then when using a correct harvest and proper fish numbers management this will help you toward achiving your specific goals, There are many ways to grow bass depending on ones GOALS for what type of bass fishery is desired.
There have been numerous discussions here about using GSH as a forage fish. They do have Pros and Cons and their usage depends on ones pond management goals.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 07/22/25 10:09 AM. Reason: threadfish shad not threadfin shiners plus word edits
