Bass Behavior Question

[little_stephen]

So i was fishing tonite on my new lake i live on. and I saw something really wierd I wasn't  sure of. Lets see what you guys think. (I shore fish remember)

I landed my first bass of the night, I spooked a TON of bluegill that were up on the shallow over the sand and clay as I landed it.

I looked around a bit and started seeing lots of little tiny bluegill and then something i wasnt expecting. Little tiny bass. I knew they were bass based off the black stripe on the tip of the tail and theyre shape.

These were a little shorter than my hand in length, and were swimming in a pack with the small bluegill!

Ive never seen bass and bluegill interact like that around this time of year. I know they intereact well most of the year anyways. but these young fish were all mingling and keeping in a well defined herd.....

Wierd!

Not to mention, i had a dink bass.... more than likely la little under 1lbs follow a jig i was BURNING at full speed back to shore. then stop promptly about three feet from shore. I ACTUALLY saw the thing notice me, and then dart back for deeper cover.

Are the yearling or fingerling or whatever bass hanging out with the little gills for protection from the other bass???

What do you guys think?

[Gangley]

the bass will congregate with the sunfish because of their similar size.  I think because of "protection in numbers".  In our ponds, the smaller bass will stay close to the perch at all times, and mingle/swim with them everywhere until they outgrow the perch.  Once they have significantly outgrown the perch and gotten about 10-12 inches in length, they start to bunch up outside of the sunfish groups, generally with 2-3 bass swimming together in groups, but will occasionaly break off and go solitary for a while.  As they get even larger, they will break off and become more solitary more regularly, eventually becoming almost entirely solitary. 

However, we do have a 4.5-5 lb bass that swims with a large coy in our pond.  They are best buddies I guess, but you always see them together, and since the coy is solid white with a gold head, he is easy to spot and therefore we can usually find the large bass very close by.  Never would have thought the bass and coy would partner up though 

[SBM-RL]

i had a teacher that lived on a lake and would scuba dive and sit on the bottom he said bass would swim by in group one after another and the bass in each group were all the same size larger the group smaller the bass kinda neat so maybe its got to do with there size.

[Raul]

.

Are the yearling or fingerling or whatever bass hanging out with the little gills for protection from the other bass???

not only they hang around 'gills, they hang around on their own or with anybody they can hang around, tiny bass are larger bass food, security is in the numbers.

[zach t]

What they said.....

The 'gills are on beds on my lake in TN. We were catching 10 inch dinks every other cast.....right next to the gills.