Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What's wrong with this bass?

I've stayed out of this one since I don't know enough about fish physiology but have seen the problem. A couple of examples come to mind.

I have several very large green sunfish that I try to avoid catching. Heck, I like them and don't want to stress them. At the end of summer, like now, my water in one pond clears significantly. Trevor(Grandson and Pardner) and I were recently BG fishing and one of the large GSF was always first to the nightcrawler. I finally quit pulling it away and caught it. It was skinny and I thought it was old and having trouble competing for food. When I disassembled it, I found a piece of plastic worm like in the bass. That told me the fish was starving and desperate. I figure that your afflicted bass got stopped up and became an opportunist for anything that couldn't easily escape.

The GSF reminded me of mankilling tigers who have been injured and have to find easier prey. Once the first piece of plastic gets stuck, another piece washing around on the bottom looks like an easy meal.

I also used to fish a local neighbors 20 acre lake. One of his bass was blind in one eye. It was pretty easy to catch since it couldn't really compete. It was about 20 inches long but couldn't have weighed over 3.5 pounds. We finally retired it to a small forage pond where the pickings were easier.