Smallies And Alewife

[Brewerbass]

I fish a lake here in Maine that is part of the Penobscot river drainage and the Marine resource department is starting to stock sea run alewife into the lake this year. The dept completed stocking of around 30,000 adult alewife last week. I had been asking the bio in charge of the work if the smallmouth in the lake would feed on the adult alewife. I kind of thought that the 8-14 inch fish would be large for them. He said that the crew loading the alewife from the trap said that 3-4 lb smallmouth would be able to eat them. Today was the first time I have been out since the stocking was completed. The alewife were evident in spawning areas and the bass were going nuts eating them! I got these pics between rain. You can kind of see the tail in the mouth pic and all that bulging in the gut is rest of the alewife all folded up inside the smallie.

[webertime]

Alewives have exploded in Champlain over the last 4-5 years and the bass LOVE them. As for size I've lost count of the number of bass that I've caught that have puked up carcasses of perch/smelt/alewives that were over 8".