LMB breeding

Has anyone ever bred LMB? I was just wondering, and I thought it would be interesting to hear about the events of breeding them and raising the fry.

Has anyone ever bred LMB? I was just wondering, and I thought it would be interesting to hear about the events of breeding them and raising the fry.

Bred them in ponds.

Male digs nest.
Courtship kinda boring relative to smaller sunfishes and drawn out over days. Territoriaal male gets a whiter belly. Female when she appraoches nest gets dark eyes and seems to threaten male as the male does his slow dance leading to the nest site. Egg extrusion / fertilization identical to smaller sunfishes.

Papa takescare of kids until nearly an inch long, sometimes longer. When they leave his care they look like bass, not larvae. Papa looses a lot of weight, partly because he does not eat and partly because he works so hard patrolling territory and defending brood. Mama sometimes hanges around and defends perifery of territory. Mama may take over if papa gets wacked. Mama spotted bass definantly helps chase central longear away from brood in at least two streams i have watched.

Largemouth bass should be done breeding by now, especially in the south. Stream dwelling spotted bass and smallmouth just getting into breeding here in Missouri.

Removed eggs from nest and reared them like other sunfishes. Easier than most sunfishes cause they start off so large. Spotted and smallmouth even easier cause thay are larger yet. Baby spotted bass if you have them will pick stuff off bottom like some baby cichlids. They al grow very fast and poorly fed you get leapers and laggers leading to high rates of cannabolism. And fry are jumpy, therefore keeplights on at all times.

I have a pond for largemouth and bluegill and the largemouth are indeed done spawning already. The above description is very good of how they breed. I may also have some spotted Bass this year from the same pond.