How do they eat it though ?

[GorillaBass]

sup fishing freaks

 

we all see it, we catch a bass with a fish in eats gullet.. we see the tail, not the head..

 

do bass always eat their baits (and hopefully our lures) eat first? 

 

so these big swimbaits we fish with, we can (hope) assume they will bite the head or body and not come up behind it?

 

thoughts? 

 

tight lines homies

[TnRiver46]

It varies, they would certainly rather eat it heAd first. But bluegill know to point their head at the bank to avoid being eaten. So a lot of times they slam into and bite them anyway they can, then re adjust to swallow. Also many bass die with a bluegill stuck in their throat tail first 

[GorillaBass]

yeah those spines are no joke.

 

I caught about 4lber the other day, had a huge tail in its gullet, I was throwing 8" magdraft, had me thinking how do they usually eat their prey- most the time when we reel them to the boat we just have the hook in there, we dont always see HOW they ate it .. 

 

had me curious what others thought

[cyclops2]

DO NO T PULL out any part of a eaten fish still inside of a fish throat. The different spines may get pulled wide open and lock the body in there. Big fish starves to death with that spine jammed fish right where it is. I did that to a nice fish . I could not push or pull the 1/2 eaten fish either way.. I murdered  that nice bass.

[keagbassr]

Ive seen all kinds of fish sticking out of their throats and always the tails never the heads however with crawfish i always see the claws/ antenae.  About 3 years ago i was out and saw a good size fish wallowing and thrashing on the surface which i thought  was odd as this usually means carp but there arent any in this body of water and it was out in about 10 feet of water. Went over to have a look and i must have really spooked it because when i got about 5 feet away it thrashed violently and was gone but the pic below below is what was left behind. This perch was at least a foot long and as you can see swallowed head first.

[cyclops2]

I have had 1 bass get hooked on my lure WITH A FISH in his throat.  Odd.  No way to swallow any more.

[Drawdown]

I’ve seen it, twice. Both times it was a bigger bass that had swallowed another bass . Used to convince myself it was two of them trying to hit the lure at the same time and the smaller one got swallowed.

 

Now I just don’t know.

[keagbassr]

March 26th caught this 2.5ish bass smoked a bladed jig with this bullhead in his throat.

[Bird]

Bass have an internal instinct to swallow head first on fish prey.

Want to increase your hookup ratio on Zoom flukes ?

Hook them in the mouth with a circle hook.

[keagbassr]

16 minutes ago, cyclops2 said:

No way to swallow any more.

I dont think they worry about how much they can swallow only about taking advantage of a feeding opportunity. One time back 25-30 years ago i was throwing a 3" chartreuse  grub and hooked a 12-13" smallie. Had it hooked dead center in the upper lip.  While unhooking it i realized it had not only a 4-5" fallfish in its throat but tucked into its left and right cheek were some sort of  chartreuse larve looking things that were virtually identical to my grub except without the curl tail

[PhishLI]

Gobbled my lure with an Alwife in process.

[papajoe222]

In my experience, bass will attack their prey from any direction, but swallow it head first.

One indicator that the bass you just caught was in a positive mood, is the location of your bait/hook in its mouth. If you're catching them on the front treble of your hard bait, that's a good indication. If it's on the back treble, that fish was either in a neutral mood, or you were slow on the hookset.

[Basser2021]

6 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

It varies, they would certainly rather eat it heAd first. But bluegill know to point their head at the bank to avoid being eaten. So a lot of times they slam into and bite them anyway they can, then re adjust to swallow. Also many bass die with a bluegill stuck in their throat tail first 

what he said

[GorillaBass]

15 hours ago, cyclops2 said:

DO NO T PULL out any part of a eaten fish still inside of a fish throat. The different spines may get pulled wide open and lock the body in there. Big fish starves to death with that spine jammed fish right where it is. I did that to a nice fish . I could not push or pull the 1/2 eaten fish either way.. I murdered  that nice bass.

 

man thats something id never think to do lol 

10 hours ago, papajoe222 said:

In my experience, bass will attack their prey from any direction, but swallow it head first.

One indicator that the bass you just caught was in a positive mood, is the location of your bait/hook in its mouth. If you're catching them on the front treble of your hard bait, that's a good indication. If it's on the back treble, that fish was either in a neutral mood, or you were slow on the hookset.

yea - I agree w/ this 

 

thanks for all the feedback from everyone, I've caughta  handfull of bass with tails in their gullets and always had me wondering.. plus when I'm throwing a huge swimbait around, my natrual incline is "oh its going to come from behind to eat this, 5-6" of the bait is in its mouth before it reaches the hook" then I think.. no, its biting the head, to kill, injure, confuse then eat, and will hit the hook first...

 

you guys see the battles in my head ?! ... lol

 

thanks for the opinions guys

[Dwight Hottle]

Rule of thumb years ago when fishing live bait for all species was to let the fish grab the bait first & let it move off until it stops then when it starts to move off again set the hook. Predators will grab a bait then reposition in their mouths to swallow it head first. Unfortunately the above approach caused a lot of gut hooked fish hence the quick strike rig was born. 

[cyclops2]

I used to get lots of side & head grabs. + 20 years ago. Now almost every grab is a tail grabber. The fish have a blind spot with their laterial sensor line. NO GREAT  REAR sensing.  So rear  ambushing is effective. The C & R of us have taught that side attacks can be more hooks if not food. I give fish credit to learn how to do safer attacks. critical things can be permnantly istalled in a animals genetics with enough times. Some call it instinct.

Today. was a complete disaster.  0000.0 HOOKED FISH\. Of any size or type.  I did not sell any real weeds starting. The 1 acre of water lillies is a bunch of 6" diameter BLACK DEAD sprouts in the muck.  

Most important DEATH SIGN ?  1 STUPID cormorant in a normally crowded area.  The central sewage along the USA side & Bass contests are doing a fantastic job on local fishes.

 

I am not even sure if it is worth fishing my area. Might go 2 miles to big island in the main river.

[WRB]

Bass grow by eating live prey from a fingerling to adult. The bass that make mistakes often don’t survive.

Back in the day when anglers ate the catch it was common to find large or several fish, crawdads etc in a bass gullet.

The reason bass prefer slender small scaled fish vs spiny wide body fish is learned by trail and error. 

Crappie are preferred over bluegill if both are availble for example. Bass engulf prey and try to kill it before swallowing fish whole head first, crawdads tail first.

Like most animals bass doesn’t know it’s own size.

Tom

 

[Deleted account]

On 5/22/2022 at 4:44 PM, GorillaBass said:

sup fishing freaks

 

we all see it, we catch a bass with a fish in eats gullet.. we see the tail, not the head..

 

do bass always eat their baits (and hopefully our lures) eat first? 

 

so these big swimbaits we fish with, we can (hope) assume they will bite the head or body and not come up behind it?

 

thoughts? 

 

tight lines homies

It depends on the ratio between the size of the prey and the bass, if it fits completely or mostly in it's mouth, it will just swallow it, and the combination of the gullet, teeth, and pads will force it head first, if roughly 1/2 or less fits in it's mouth, it will use its teeth to rotate it before swallowing, in the extreme with really large prey, it will actually release and recapture it while reposition it, it happens so quickly that it's almost imperceptible at real speed. Pike and pickerel are the real champs at this though.