Hey guys, this is my first post and it is an interesting one. Took a day off to take advantage of 1/2 Wed special and was at lake by 7:30AM. Searched the East Dam and coves on the right side of marina and..... for nothing. Tried all kinds of lures and even metered shad balls with big arches underneath them but no love at all. Anyways that is the fishing side of the story and it was the same with all who went yesterday when I spoke to them after we pulled in at marina.
One funny thing is that I saw this yellowish balloon in the middle of the lake and when I got close I found out it was a bass (approx 5-6 lbs) with belly up floating. Scooped it up to see if I can save it (I knew I brought my net for a purpose) but the only life sign I can detect was the tiny spasms of its fins. However I instantly spotted something in the fish's wide opened mouth and it was a giant bluegill stocked in its throat!! The greedy bass obviously went after a buffet and gulped the bluegill but ended up that it was more than what it bargained for and choked to death!!! The bass was not able to split it out the gill because it was swallowed head in first and the spikes on the bluegill's fins kind of locked in the bass's mouth going out on a reverse direction and prevented the split out. The poor bass obviously suffocated to death.
Anyways, it was a very pleasant day just to be out in the water and hope the fishing condition is better next time when I head out there again.
That's a hell of a picture and find! I've seen that on fishing shows, especially really predatory fish, but here with a LMB...very interesting. Kind of makes you want to UP-size at times. Thanks for the post.
Here's a floater I found recently. However, the outcome was more pleasant. I pulled the gill out of the largemouth and the bass swam away. Unfortunately, the gill did not make it. Can we please have a moment of silence for the gill.............................................. ............thank you.
hey guys, I have seen this at Perris as well, but just a thought, is there a possibility that the bass are targeting bluegill due to the striper lowering the shad population or is the shad numbers still holding up and these fish were just looking for a bigger meal?
I'm no guru on the subject but any large gamefish is opportunistic. They'll rip the largest meal that they can or in this case cannot handle vs wasting energy chasing down tiny meals. As for the shad population in DVL my guess is that they have thinned down comapared to last summer/fall but that there's still a ton of them left.