Baitfish present=bass too?

[Gregorym38]

Fishing a stream that runs into a local lake, the stream has plenty of yellow perch, blue gills, pumpkin seeds, baby lmb, and a few smb. The lake also has these, but they are more abundant in the stream. Lots of baitfish present, does that mean there are bigger largemouth bass too?  

[soflabasser]

Bass and other predator fish tend to stay close to baitfish, so it is a good idea to fish in places with a healthy population of baitfish.

[WRB]

LMB are not stream fish by nature, Smallmouth bass are.

The area the stream enters the lake with less current attracts LMB.

Tom

[Koz]

While it increases the odds, the presence of bait fish does not always mean there will be bass present. Off the top of my head, if comparable baitfish are in multiple areas the abundance of bass will be predicated on things such as seasonality, water temperature, oxygenation, vegetation, structure, cover, etc.

[Gregorym38]

7 hours ago, WRB said:

LMB are not stream fish by nature, Smallmouth bass are.

The area the stream enters the lake with less current attracts LMB.

Tom

I was thinking they might stick closer to the lake, i will have to try fishing the entrance to the lake

[Fallser]

I would say that it increases the odds that bass will be present.  My local creek has both smallmouth and largemouth in it.  The creek does run into a river, but there are a series of historical dams that date back to the mid-1800's when papermills lined the creek.  Not sure how they got there, but you find them in the slower areas of the creek behind the dams.  Sometimes at the beginning of the slow water you'll mixed pods of small bass, largemouth and smallmouth chasing bait.

[Sphynx]

All squares are rectangles, not all rectangles are squares...while all bass hang out around bait, not all bait has bass hanging out nearby.