All About Bass Fishing - Guide To Understanding The Life Cycle Of Bass

Understanding How Bass Live Helps Us Find Them

Overview. One could spend a lifetime researching the scientific details of bass. For the purpose of this book, we will focus on the aspects which could help you understand bass in a way so as to improve your odds of catching them. The most important thing to understand about the life cycle of a bass is that the entire process is creating the ultimate predator for their adult life. The lessons learned as fry, traveling in schools and trying not to be eaten by larger fish, will help them catch smaller schooling fish when they become adult bass. The second most important thing for a bass angler to understand is the spawning cycle. This dictates all activity during spring each year.

3 Most Important Factors About The Life Cycle of a Bass

Knowing the lifecycle of bass makes it easier to find them.
Their entire life cycle is focused around the spawn and feeding.
Bass typically grow from 1/2 of a pound to one pound, or more per year.

The Life Cycle

Once bass complete the spawn process, they go back to their annual and daily movements with little regard for their offspring. Of the thousands of eggs which hatch, only a few will grow to be mature adults.

Egg Hatches

Once the eggs hatch, fry are protected by the male bass until he reaches exhaustion. The fry stay in a tight school and migrate from the nest into cover close by. They are prey for virtually all predators larger than themselves. A high percentage of these fry do not survive the first couple of weeks.

Year 1

Over the course of the first year those that survive will reach a weight of approximately one-half pound to three-quarters of a pound. Many will be eaten by larger fish. Birds will catch and eat some of them. The weak will die due to illness or injury.

The most important aspect for those which survive, is the lessons learned about the benefits and dangers of being part of a school. Most leave the schools and become individual feeders, even if they are in an area with several other individual feeders. This learning process as prey, will help them become better predators later in life. They will be aware of the “school” mentality as they feed on schools of baitfish for survival. Their digestive system is now learning to process a variety of foods as they will eat just about anything they can get in their mouth.

Year 2

Again, many of the bass that survive the first year will not survive the second year. They are becoming more active and aggressive which makes them more vulnerable to the predators which prey on them, including anglers. These bass may reach an average weight of one and one-half pounds or more, by the end of the second year. Depending on the length of the growing season in their area, they may grow larger or smaller. The surviving bass are improving their skills as a predator and learning to use cover to their advantage.

Adulthood

As bass mature, they develop skills and an understanding of the relationship of effort exerted to the value attained from various food sources. They become better ambush predators, and do less chasing to acquire their food. Cover becomes increasingly important as they hone their attack methods. They begin to focus on catching bluegills and similar-size prey, rather than smaller baitfish when they have the option.

Mature Trophy Bass

Only a very small percentage of bass reach trophy size, which may vary in different parts of the country. These big bass have the run of the lake and can do pretty much what they please. They roam free and only go into an ambush mode when the feeding urge hits them. Because most of them have experienced being hooked at some point in their lifetime, they are very careful about what they eat. It can be difficult to fool them with artificial lures.