Do bass feed more aggressively after a bad winter?

[J Francho]

I'm not following the leap from cold temps and aggression I'm seeing in this thread. Is there research that bears this out?  I mean if that were true, my bass should be going crazy all the time every spring. 

[roadwarrior]

Maybe I'm just jealous, but when I read about 50-100 fish days on Erie or St. Clair 

I'm thinking these fish only have four months out of the year to eat. In the South

they feed throughout the year. 

[J Francho]

I'm thinking it's due to the concentrations of fish in smaller areas. 

[TriStateBassin106]

42 minutes ago, J Francho said:

I'm not following the leap from cold temps and aggression I'm seeing in this thread. Is there research that bears this out?  I mean if that were true, my bass should be going crazy all the time every spring. 

This argument probably goes more towards the Northern Strain Largemouths and Smallmouths. 

[J Francho]

1 minute ago, TriStateBassin106 said:

This argument probably goes more towards the Northern Strain Largemouths and Smallmouths. 

Northern strain are likely the majority of bass caught.

[TriStateBassin106]

46 minutes ago, roadwarrior said:

Maybe I'm just jealous, but when I read about 50-100 fish days on Erie or St. Clair 

I'm thinking these fish only have four months out of the year to eat. In the South

they feed throughout the year. 

That's the basics of the argument really. Bass who are trapped in freezing temps will eat much more when the intial ice out in warming temps around late March/Early April (at least here in the Northeast) compared to it being a rather mild winter with a cold and wet spring. Last year for example we had a very mild winter with some days being 60degrees in February. I think the bass prematurely went shallow and started to feed instead of doing it in April, because the spring bite sucked last year and the fish went straight from winter mode into spawn. 

5 minutes ago, J Francho said:

Northern strain are likely the majority of bass caught.

I'm under the impression Southern bass pretty much feed all year long, I don't know what part of the country you're from but I'm guessing down south? Is the recent cold weather badly effecting the fish down there? 

[J Francho]

3 minutes ago, TriStateBassin106 said:

I'm under the impression Southern bass pretty much feed all year long, I don't know what part of the country you're from but I'm guessing down south? Is the recent cold weather badly effecting the fish down there?

I'm in western NY.  My point is that Florida strain are not nearly as widespread as northern strain.  Also, smallmouth bass are confusing the discussion, thouhg my thoughts follow the same pattern for them as well.  See my comments above about year round feeding, and temperature.  Fish eat year round, but eat less in colder temps.   They also require less food in colder months.  The whole "fatten up for winter" is a bit of a myth, though they certainly do feed up in fall.  I don't think this is to endure a period of not eating.  If that was the case, why are so many of the early spring catches so healthy?  They literally are in their best shape after what most describe as a famine.  Cold water, slower metabolism, lower caloric requirement, less feeding.  Warmer water, faster metabolism, higher caloric requirement, more feeding.  Again, I don't think the length or severity of winter has much to do with aggression.  They're aggressive every spring.  Let's not forget their aggressive patterns follow large gathering and migrations of forage.  It's not a coincidence those two intersect with high activity.

[roadwarrior]

14 minutes ago, TriStateBassin106 said:

Is the recent cold weather badly effecting the fish down there? 

The predominate forage is threadfin shad which begin to die off when the

water reaches 45*. Right now we are experiencing a massive shad kill. For

the next two weeks the bite has disappeared.

[Fishlegs]

To me it seems logical that if the cold water temps cause the primary food source to die off that competition among the bass would go up due to a lower food supply. I know that’s an oversimplification of how the food chain works, but it might contribute to the appearance of more aggressive spring bite.

[J Francho]

It could also mean dispersal to other areas usually not frequented in search of alternate food sources, hence the lack of bites when fishing usual spots.

[Luke Barnes]

I wonder how this applies to ponds. I live in oklahoma and i cant tell you the last time any pond iced over until this past week. So either way I plan on being on the bank as soon as some water starts to show. 

[TriStateBassin106]

11 minutes ago, Luke Barnes said:

I wonder how this applies to ponds. I live in oklahoma and i cant tell you the last time any pond iced over until this past week. So either way I plan on being on the bank as soon as some water starts to show. 

This^ but for crappie!! Best time to catch em is when ice is gone but the water is still too cold for bass! Already have an ultra light ready to go hahaha

[Catt]

5 hours ago, J Francho said:

I thought they fed all winter, just that the colder water slowed their metabolism, meaning they needed less food to survive, and ate less.  I was under the impression that it didn't get much colder than 32* F under water, so I'm not sure whether they care what the temps are above the water if they're below freezing.  I've always just worked under the assumption that warming trends mean an uptick in feeding activity.

 

Exactly ?

 

One part y'all forgetting, bass are predators!

 

I probably pay less attention to water temperatures than any of y'all. Yeah I'm aware of it but I'm more concerned what it was yesterday & the day before. Is it trending upwards or downward.

[A-Jay]

5 minutes ago, Catt said:

 

Exactly ?

 

One part y'all forgetting, bass are predators!

 

I probably pay less attention to water temperatures than any of y'all. Yeah I'm aware of it but I'm more concerned what it was yesterday & the day before. Is it trending upwards or downward.

 

You know my 'season' is fairly limited.

So

It's Open water, I'm on it !

?

A-Jay

[Catt]

10 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

 

You know my 'season' is fairly limited.

So

It's Open water, I'm on it !

?

A-Jay

 

If it was frozen yesterday & open today ya don't need to know the temperature...it's trending upwards.

 

Not all bass ate at the same time, thereby they will be in all stages of Mr. Cook's digestion chart.

 

Another I don't pay much attention to is the whole northern/western shore thing. Not that I don't believe it warms first because it does. I just don't believe all the bass on the south & east shore head out. 

[WRB]

Warming the water is a mass thing the more of it the longer it takes. Bass move up for a reason they are looking for food in warmer water. If the bait move up the bass follow. If the bait is up so are bass. The key is water not ice.

Tom

 

[Mobasser]

This is a good post. I never gave this topic much thought untill I read through this post. A very bad winter could possibly make the early spring fishing tough, but as others have said, if the ice is gone, I'm going fishing. 

[Luke Barnes]

3 hours ago, TriStateBassin106 said:

This^ but for crappie!! Best time to catch em is when ice is gone but the water is still too cold for bass! Already have an ultra light ready to go hahaha

I've got a 4'8 UL and a 9' L jigging rod ready for crappie! I wonder how it converts over to catfish?

[Sam]

10 hours ago, J Francho said:

I'm not following the leap from cold temps and aggression I'm seeing in this thread. Is there research that bears this out?  I mean if that were true, my bass should be going crazy all the time every spring. 

Good question. Maybe James will chime in from a pro's perspective.

[tander]

On 2/18/2021 at 10:06 AM, Catt said:

The only advantage I see down here is a severe winter beats back the vegetation making for easier access to the fish.

Hope it killed the rest of the Giant Salvania that was in my lake.

[Deleted account]

The overall winter yes, but particularly when the second half is worse, and the transition is short and not prolonged, I have seen this with bass and more so with other fish particularly in the salt. It makes sense, the water temps will rise over a shorter period of time. As a commercial fisherman, I see every season as the same but different, You have to fish the season but you also have to fish the day and the moment. That reminds me, Am I the only one that thinks Randy B. seems sad most of the time?

[E-rude dude]

We have had some severe winters up here last few years mixed in with mild ones.

Severe winters seem to cause more spring floaters. Thicker ice causes much slower spring water temp warm ups. The fish seem  move up later in the year to get busy. 
BUT in harsh winter years when they do move up its lights out fishing for awhile. Then it seems to shut off overnight.

Mild winters seem to have summers with much more consistency of fishing throughout summer.

Just my experience 

[Paul Roberts]

On 2/19/2021 at 11:17 AM, J Francho said:

I thought they fed all winter, just that the colder water slowed their metabolism, meaning they needed less food to survive, and ate less.  I was under the impression that it didn't get much colder than 32* F under water, so I'm not sure whether they care what the temps are above the water if they're below freezing.  I've always just worked under the assumption that warming trends mean an uptick in feeding activity.

 

On 2/19/2021 at 12:12 PM, Team9nine said:

 

This is where my mind is at. If metabolism slows, then bass require less food to maintain body weight. Doesn't matter whether they eat once every 2 weeks in the coldest water, or once every 3 days in warmer water. Either way they get what the body requires to maintain status quo. Current biological theory is that, "winter feeding occurs, but only to permit individuals to maintain minimal activity rates and routine metabolism rather than to fuel  growth or gonadal development, and that feeding only occurs when energy stores decline to a critical level."

 

It is during the fall that fish feed more often or aggressively as a means of increasing energy stores in preparation for the winter. This pattern seems to hold for most sunfish species. It doesn't preclude that a few fish that have been particularly affected negatively  during winter wouldn't have to feed more often coming out of winter, but it doesn't appear to be the normal pattern of behavior.

 

@Paul Roberts Care to chime in with your thoughts and observations on this subject...

Thanks for the head’s up, Brian. From what I've been able to gather, John and Brian hit the gist pretty well. (Apologies, I haven’t read all the posts.) Winter is most generally a time for energy conservation. It’s been found though, that even when bass are in energy conservation mode, basic metabolic requirements are high enough to cause the loss of valuable tissue/weight. So winter bass must continue to feed. How much depends on how much they need and whether they can get it.

 

I guess I'd add that there is evidence that bass may be happy to feed anytime, when they can, even in winter. "Can" is a matter of conditions & circumstances, and there are a lot of potentials/variables there, esp as you start looking across different water bodies. Bass come through winter better in some waters than others —even waters sitting right next to each other. And in some years better than other years. 

 

I guess a bottom line may be: If prey is vulnerable to attack, bass are apt to attack —provided that they are are feeling OK (water chemistry, esp O2 at times and places that are only a common problem in some waters), and not already full (lower digestion rates playing a role). But bass have been found to feed surprisingly heavily in very cold, often unseasonable, conditions; Shad die-offs being the prime example I'm thinking of. On the flip-side, and the default for most waters, esp so farther north, is longer periods with less feeding.

 

So, wherever you are, your bass are likely to be happy to feed if given the chance. And that chance, in my mind, has to do with vulnerable prey. This is true throughout the year, but in winter things are generally more challenging for the fish.

 

Getting to the OP’s question, I’m not aware, off the top of my head, of research looking at what’s called “compensatory growth” in adult bass coming out of winter. But CG is a known thing in the development of young animals including fishes, and bass specifically. I would not doubt that bass coming out of winter on the thin-side would “seek” to regain weight. But then, that’s what spring bass do anyway, it seems, esp the mature females. Whether such a “desire” can be realized is another story, depending on what that water body in its current state can offer. If there isn’t enough to go around, then chasing everything that moves could make things worse. There’s a real check and balances thing going on out there.

 

Those rising temps in spring (with possibly an endogenous rhythm kicking in), though, do appear to give bass (and other fish) some serious wiggle room in terms of metabolic effectiveness. Problem is, water temps don’t rise really well until the sun is high enough, and that’s at a climate scale, larger than weather. 

 

Last spring, we had a late frigid cold blast hit. And the talk started going around… What will happen to the spawn? I predicted, and then measured, that the sun is too high for “winter” to hold on. And indeed, in my ponds, the initiation of spawning occurred within days of when normally expected. In fact, it was the focus of one of my video fishing journals (VFJ#30). I’ll post the link here. (If Mods feel it’s not appropriate, remove it or ask me to.) This smugly said, if the current Arctic-cap/jet-stream de-stabilization thing were to continue… who knows how long “winter” weather might extend.

 

 

 

[Catt]

What I'm reading here is anglers experience from different parts of the country fishing different types of bodies of water.

 

I highly doubt @Paul Roberts Colorado pond bass react the same as my southern bass. I highly doubt @A-Jay northern bass are anything like @WRB west coast bass. 

 

I know one thing for sure, about the time I think I know what they are doing, they prove to me I don't!

 

Take last year's spawn on Toledo Bend, after a relatively mild winter everything they should have been doing they weren't & everything they shouldn't have been doing they were.

[Paul Roberts]

5 hours ago, Catt said:

What I'm reading here is anglers experience from different parts of the country fishing different types of bodies of water.

 

I highly doubt @Paul Roberts Colorado pond bass react the same as my southern bass. I highly doubt @A-Jay northern bass are anything like @WRB west coast bass. 

 

I know one thing for sure, about the time I think I know what they are doing, they prove to me I don't!

 

Take last year's spawn on Toledo Bend, after a relatively mild winter everything they should have been doing they weren't & everything they shouldn't have been doing they were.

Complicated world for sure. And a big broad stroke of a comment, Tommy! I hear you, though. Thanks for stirring the pot.

 

I'll respond this way: Without seriously rigorous attempts at fathoming the nature of things, there's not much we can say about anything, much less everything. I guess all we could say is that there are... differences. Trying to shoehorn a complicated critter (that has evolved from a complicated environment) into anyone's understanding is a huge task, bigger than any one of us. Yet, not everything is possible. There are limitations that define the species.

 

Short of writing (or finishing!) a (never-ending) book, I'll say most simply, that there are things all LMB bass share, and some things they don't. And there's a ton of knowledge that's been gained by teasing those things out, helping "us" (a collective) developing a better -not complete- understanding of them. One interesting thing is that the basic metabolic engine of LMB runs at the same temperature range across its range, even for FL LM's. Why would this be? It's suggested that it's bc the last glacial period "wiped the slate" for LMB, and then... we began stocking LMB" all over the place. This does not mean that there are not local adaptations; There certainly are. But they all "make sense" when their history in their respective environments are understood. What that exact sense is varies to some -but surprisingly small- degree.

 

I'll give an example: South FL bass spawn over a nearly 6-month period. Canadian bass may be done with it in a month. That's a difference isn't it? One is the FL LMB, the other the "Northern LMB". Interestingly, take northern LMB and bring them to the sub-tropics; It's been done. And those N LMB develop 6 month long spawning seasons. They are also short-lived, owing tho their very real physiological limitations.

 

So, I would say that the bass in my CO ponds do share a LOT with bass... the world over. Therefore, none of them should be waved off as simply "different", and therefore of no use to someone elsewhere. Yes, it's a big story that can be tough to follow. Environments certainly differ, yet experienced bass anglers can recognize the LMB's "fingerprints" in any water. Surprises? You bet. There's a reason for that, it's called genetic variability, the evolutionary responses to... surprises. From this variability we fishers get our "versatility" and "adaptability", both in tackle and mind-set. This is what is so inherently cool about fishing!