Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Eating Shinners over panfish ?

I have ran across the theory that prey fish will eat softer body fish before eating panfish with spines etc...
Such as LMB eating shinners over BG and not controling the BG population ...
Any merit to this , seems logical to me.

You aren't the only one to have come to that conclusion and it is well documented scientifically. LMB and other predatory fish will almost always chose the species with no spines before the one with spines.

This was a duplicated thread. I deleted the other thread, which only included Bobby Rice's question, and a mention by CJBS that he answered the question here.

Regards,
Catmandoo Ken
Moderator

Besides my moderator post above, the title of this thread sure caught my attention.

As many Pond Bosser's know, I enjoy turning a lot of crazy things into edible delicacies.

Over 40 years ago, I thought shiners could become something good to eat, like Great Lakes smelt. Wrong!

I thought that maybe I could convert them into something like anchovies. Wrong again!

I'm not sure why predator fish like these things.

While they may like GHS over panfish, I think that panfish occupy more of the LMB's habitat than GHS do. I don't think that LMB will go out of their way to chase down GSH in open water if there are plenty of BG in area that has cover in it where LMB hang out.

There's GSH, YP, BG, RES and PS (and bullheads, crappie, Northern Pike, Common Carp, Gizzard Shad, and just recently White Bass) in a local lake. I've caught both BG and GSH to 10" and there have been 7# LMB pulled out of the lake in the past.

The title caught me off guard and I thought it may be a culinary question.

I suppose, (people eat bugs), that with the right preparation could fit into a similar class of people that like eating bugs! I am sure that someone has done it!, and more than once!

Speaking of people who eat bugs, I did an interview for an article a couple weeks ago with a local Naturalist who used to teach edible insect classes. Her favorite recipe was Cricket Popcorn.



Ken, you were definitely not the only one who thought about eating GSHs from the thread title.

Thread thoroughly hijacked now?

Not until Ken posts a picture of the tasty snack being served at their SuperBowl party!

Maybe Omaha can send some crickets for Superbowl. This time of year all we have a marmorated stinkbugs. When they land in my old quartz lamp they don't pop, they just smell real bad.

Maybe I can get some shiners at the local bait shop.

Don't worry though. There will be plenty of good snackn' on Sunday at Catmandoo Estate and Fishing Hole.

I'd like to offer a differing opinion.
I don't think game fish choose what to eat. I think they eat whatever is available that they can catch. In a lake or pond, they don't differentiate between fish with spines and fish without spines. If they are hungry, or have that instinctive need to consume something, they will. Largemouth bass for example, feed for three reasons. One, they are hungry. At that point, they'll eat whatever is moving and fits into their mouths, whether it's a bluegill or bullhead or a shiner. Second, they react to something moving into their "zone". Bass will attack and eat something in their zone because that's what they instinctively do. Third, when they are defending a territory or a nest, it doesn't matter who invades...they'll dispose of it whether they eat it or not. If a bass gets a negative response from whatever it puts into its mouth, they'll spit it out. But, if its smells like a fish, acts like a fish or barks like a fish...it's a fish...and they'll eat it.

Until I read Bob's post I was wondering to myself, "Are fish really that smart?" Would a bass be hanging around thinking, "There goes a nice bluegill, but they are kind of spiney, I think I'll hold out for a nice shiner."

I've read so much about fusiform fish being more vulnerable to predation. Not true?

Yep, I'm wondering the same. I believe it was here that I first heard the statement that adding NP to control a runaway BG population was a bad idea, due to the NP preference to consume LMB, with their more fusiform shape, rather than the BG.

Did I misinterpret something, or have we just shifted gears?

Me too, but I don't see Bob refuting that. Rather, maybe because fusiform forage [GSH, YP, Salamanders, etc.] are easier to swallow than BG, more can be consumed in a given amount of time [LMB lifetime], and the impact on fusiform forage is therefore greater than on other types of forage. If a LMB gets a hold of a 10" GSH I'd think there's a very high probability it's going straight to the stomach. An 8" BG, that's another story. Think of it's width and spines...maybe fewer of those end up becoming a meal. I know every 4th BG I catch at my main pond has some kind of battle scars on it - usually a bite scrape that looks like it would match the gape of a SMB or HSB that just couldn't get it down. So a LMB hits 5 GSH and 5 BG in a given timeframe. Of those 5 GSH, 4 become meals. Of the 5 BG, maybe 2 or 3 get caught sideways or are able to give a good spike to the roof of the mouth and escape predation. So, mortality of fusiform fish are necessarily higher. Extrapolate over the lifetime of a bass - there's a huge gap between the number of fusiform forage being consumed vs Sunfish. To put it into JHAP terms: You could put away significantly more brats than nachos in a given timeframe. Maybe I'm way off on this, but my fishery seems to suggest I may be onto something.

Now the real science to embrace here is discovering how one combines brats and nachos...there's a Super Bowl culinary project I just might have to tackle!

Fusiform fish are easier to swallow. I've never seen a bass choke to death on a sucker, but I've found too many bass floating, after trying to swallow a 10" bluegill, much to its chagrin...and to both fish's demise. If those bass were smart, they wouldn't have swallowed those spiny rascals in the first place.
But, they aren't....

I have been fishing with live bait and had preditor fish eating one type of live baitfish and not another. Litterally fishing them in the same area, time and time again they would hit one and not the other. The one that was being hit is the one that was readily available, it seemed the fish had really keyed in on that one particular bait fish.

I've never heard this before. However, in my particular situation it does make sense. In the past few years, since the intorduction of numerous NP in dad's pond, I can't say that i have actually seen an impact on the BG population, but I most certainly have noted that there are fewer LMB cruising the shallows, and those that we do see/catch, are quite a bit larger (whether they are actually growing or fewer smaller bass is making it easier to spot/catch the larger ones is up to speculation).

I would assume, very un-scientifically, that the NP hammered a few age groups of fingerling LMB, and as the NP continue to grow, they will continue to clean up some of the skinnier bass that fit the size of their preferred prey.

Of course, i know that isnt exclusive, and some of the BG will fall victim to predation as well...but the impact has been more notable on the LMB-side than the BG.

Also, i understand that there could be hundreds of other reasons for this effect as well.

I believe bass get conditioned at times that spiny fish are less palatable and therefore often focus on other spineless prey when possible. I have raised bass of different species and sunfish in aquariums for many years. During those years I have tried feeding them all kinds of things. One thing I have observed is if it is something new and has spines or can nip back, say a crayfish for example. If that bass gets whacked by a crayfish, it can takes many many weeks for that bass to forget that experience and begin eating crayfish again. Especially if they have other food sources available. I can see this occurring in the wild as well. A bass goes to feed on a BG, gets a mouth full of spines and spits the BG out. It has now been conditioned. If there are shiners, shad or other species present to feed on, that bass will I am betting focus more on them...

I think the biggest proof that bass prefer shiners over BG is this little experiment. I have tried it before. In a controlled environment, say a large aquarium or outdoor koi pond have 5 or 10 bass. Then place 20 BG and 20 GSH of the same size into that pond or aquarium at the same time. See which ones are gone first... I'll bet my next paycheck the BG are around long after all the GSH have been eaten. You certainly can't say it's because BG are faster and more nimble as GSH have BG beat in both of those departments. It's those spines and bass would rather eat non spiny fish any day over spiny ones.

In my pond, I've watched LMB eyeing a BG, but not eat it. The LMB was constantly circling the BG trying to get in front of it so it could grab it head on. The BG kept moving so that it was sidways to the LMB, and after about 5 minutes, the LMB finally just gave up and swam off.

Many animals instinctively know to leave brightly marked prey such as toads, frogs, snakes, etc. alone because they are poisonous, and so that kind of instinct probably applies to bass eating bluegills that could cause problems if they aren't careful.

So, one of the biologists at work gave me a book he read some time ago about understanding bass behavior, I thought, due to this conversation, that i might read it looking for an answer to conditioned behavior due to available prey species.

Considering this example, i think that were both a shiner and a bg available, and both just as likely to be caught, it is completely possible for the bass to have created a preference, conditioned to understand that the fusiform shape is easier to swallow. however, i dont think that this evidence points definitively to one answer or the other, since there may be reasons why any bass would prefer the larger and more abundant meal of a BG. I think it is all down to the training caused by previous feeding behavior.

Likely not news to anybody, but i thought the quote was interesting, given the discussion.

Some prey are more determined than others.

Classic, AP. We have a friend who has that exact picture in his office.

Yeah I love that cartoon, I've got a T-shirt with that on it.

Me too!