Some Dumb Questions

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, been busy with fish, other critters, and general summer activities. My fish have all been released into my own large natural pond and a friend's backyard pool. Mr. Northern Pike now lives in a Esox "playground" (i.e, a friend who I convinced that natives are awesome who houses them in an koi pond of 1000 gallons) with two tiger muskies my friend's father and him caught from Fernan Lake and a foodstock of carp and some other fish. The LMB got, well, MEAN. He would stress death other fish by chasing them around and biting them, then spitting them out to twitch and sink and die (I thought this was weird because LMB's are the least aggressive bass, right?). Another friend got him, but the poor fish freaked when a light was turned on, causing the bass to jump out of the tank the second day, causing him, in turn, to be eaten by my friend's psycho husky mix. I'm going to restart with a more realistic setup, but anyways, I was a small lake in my area known as Round Lake. I saw loads of fish, pumpkinseeds, white crappie, and some SMB and LMB bass. Anyways, I saw a group of about 5 or 6 bass in the shallows, chasing small fish and rooting for crawdads. One bass flushed a crayfish, which was snapped up by another bass. I saw some more of this what looked like accidental commelism, which means each fish was hunting in this "pack" to reduce energy and to catch prey more effectively. Sure, they probably did this on accident, but do bass hunt in packs? Just curious.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, been busy with fish, other critters, and general summer activities. My fish have all been released into my own large natural pond and a friend's backyard pool. Mr. Northern Pike now lives in a Esox "playground" (i.e, a friend who I convinced that natives are awesome who houses them in an koi pond of 1000 gallons) with two tiger muskies my friend's father and him caught from Fernan Lake and a foodstock of carp and some other fish. The LMB got, well, MEAN. He would stress death other fish by chasing them around and biting them, then spitting them out to twitch and sink and die (I thought this was weird because LMB's are the least aggressive bass, right?). Another friend got him, but the poor fish freaked when a light was turned on, causing the bass to jump out of the tank the second day, causing him, in turn, to be eaten by my friend's psycho husky mix. I'm going to restart with a more realistic setup, but anyways, I was a small lake in my area known as Round Lake. I saw loads of fish, pumpkinseeds, white crappie, and some SMB and LMB bass. Anyways, I saw a group of about 5 or 6 bass in the shallows, chasing small fish and rooting for crawdads. One bass flushed a crayfish, which was snapped up by another bass. I saw some more of this what looked like accidental commelism, which means each fish was hunting in this "pack" to reduce energy and to catch prey more effectively. Sure, they probably did this on accident, but do bass hunt in packs? Just curious.

Largemouth bass are known to hunt as a group where like minded/hungry individuals hunt together and facilitate each others ability to capture prey. I do not think they communicate to coordinate attacks like many whales and dolphins, wolves, chimpanzees and humans. You as an observer can with practice identify a bass in hunting "mode". Bass can almost certainly do the same and associate with like minded similar size bass. The bass can also key on when a fellow has targeted and in what direction it lies relative to the targeting bass which may be the limited communication that gets individuals to hunt prey within a given clump of vegetation.

but do bass hunt in packs?

I have had a ~3 inch yellow perch in a planted 30 gallon (long) for a while. He was kept with a 7 inch spotted gar, some larger golden shiners and some northern redbelly dace, the latter two for food obviously. This last weekend I added some smaller banded killis, also for food, two very small largemouths (1.5 and 2 inches) and two 2in yellow perch. I had a dozen or so small roseys in there also that I was feeding to my redfin, in another tank. Previous to the new additions this weekend the 3 in perch always had a sunken looking stomach, though he was eating flake an dfrozen brine daily. After the addition of the two bass and two perch though, the rosey's all diappeared and he and the bass had full bellys. I can only assume that the addes predation of the new bass and perch facilitated him catching the rosey's. While they may or may not have been hunting "togehter" they definately took advantage of the added confusion to catch their prey.

I know that small mouth school in open water and have seen them "corral" schools of minnows and feast communally. The gulls and terns seem to notice this too!

bass do seem to use other individuals in hunting prey weather it be their own species or others. I have seen them following carp and eating crayfish that the carp stir up. I also know of someone who did their masters on whatching smallmouth follow and even defend "their" N. hogsucker from other smallmouth. They seemed to pick an individual sucker and follow it around feeding on crayfish and other organisms the sucker stired up.

bass do seem to use other individuals in hunting prey weather it be their own species or others. I have seen them following carp and eating crayfish that the carp stir up. I also know of someone who did their masters on whatching smallmouth follow and even defend "their" N. hogsucker from other smallmouth. They seemed to pick an individual sucker and follow it around feeding on crayfish and other organisms the sucker stired up.

I have seen similar with smallmouth and spotted bass in the Big River drainage of Missouri. As I hand-collected crayfish while snorkeling the bass would intitially follow me around catching crayfish shooting out from under rocks I turned. Some of the varmints then began to position themselves at rocks I was about to turn over and attempt to catch the crayfish before I could even see them. I was after crayfish also so that was problem. The bass also occasionaly fought when jockying for the best position to get crayfish as rock turned. My gut feeling is that the bass could have been used to identify rocks with crayfish under them. Potential piscine-pointers. I now they knew where soft shell crayfish were as they were like hound dogs as they pointed / sniffed around such rocks with soft-shell crayfish under them. The longeear sunfish would also stack up down stream of such crayfish harboring rocks.

A week ago I was vacationing at Powhatan Plantation in Williamsburg VA. My nephew in law is an avid angler and couldn't pass up trying his luck in one of the ponds. One of the staff had told him they had some nice largemouth bass. He tried some lures and some live worms but no luck. There was a gazeebo extending into the pond where people toss in bread to feed the ducks and geese all day long. Early one morning Jeremy got down to the pond early and saw one of the staff catch a nice 5 lb.er. He quickly asked what he was using. Bread balls! So he quickly got some bead and balled it up and started catching 5 lb bass and larger. I couldn't believe it when he told me how he caught them, bass prefering wonder bread over worms. He also mentioned that even the bluegills ignored the worms and instead went for the bread balls. Well he finally figured out what was going on. When the bread balls were lowered into the water it would draw a dense cloud of bluegills all fighting to get their share. He managed to hook one fist sized bluegill and as he lowered it back towards the water a huge bass lept out and engulfed it. As it turns out they were'nt going for the bread balls they were eating the bluegills and occassionally geting the breadball and hook in the process. It was amazing how even large bluegills were being devoured by these bass! He caught several over 5 lbs.