They adapt.

Good question. I wished I knew the answer!




Side Note: Seems that fishing is still going good so the overall effects must not be that much if any, a factor in the fish population.

Yup not worried about some 1lbers, but the coolers full of 3-7lbers have really set the lake back as far as numbers of big fish. Has nothing to do with bed fish since it's a year round thing on Toledo

So... No one really knows how a Bed is affected or how Bass respond to being removed from their Original Bedding area...released later farther away?

Not talking about keeping fish like mentioned above...

I have caught Males multiple times off the same bed...and while unhooking the male the boat drifted 20+ yards away and upon release he would return to the bed ASAP without hesitation!

Not knocking Tournaments during spawning time...Just curious how Male/Female Bass react and respond...

*I have been told multiple conflicting answers among my close fishing buddies

Such as: "She will just find a new bed"... "She can lay eggs a 2nd and 3rd time with different males..."

With my limited experience targeting Spawning/and Bed Fish... I'm interested in hearing from you KNOWLEDGABLE Veteran Fishermen

I'm always trying to learn more about Bass behavior...I consider myself a student of the Largemouth Bass for life

Thanks ya'll!

I thought they did a study on this by tagging fish brought in for weigh-in with transmitters. They then tracked them and most of the fish wound up back in the area they were probably caught as some of the fish would travel great distances to get back to where they were. A small percentage stayed around the release area. I vaguely remember reading this, but could not find it in a very quick google search.

John Hope did a study on this and as I recall bass did go back to their beds. Catch a bass in the Deer Stand at Rayburn and weigh it at the Pavilion and he's got a long swim back home. Most of Hope's studies were done on Houston County lake but he did do a few on Fork.

This would only have an impact in waters with very low recruitment. Thats not really any in Texas that I know of.

So pull them suckers off them beds by and give them a ride in your glitter boat then dump them 15 miles away...they love that stuff. Great for the fishery!

BUT do NOT cut them up into pieces and throw them back in the lake...thats just savage.

I'd be more worried about the gar hurting the fish population.. they are the top of the food chain and not held in check by any natural predators that I know of. Their numbers on my favorite lake are out of control, the big ones are cruising the shallows eating all day long.

Some may swim back, but I can recall a big tournament releasing their fish in a cove that normally doesn't have numbers of big ones in it. The next weekend 3 - 20lb bags were caught within 40 yards of the ramp the fish were dumped at, all of em were caught on beds.

I know of two instances where fish were caught then weighed in and released 14-16 miles from where they were caught...both returned to the same exact spot where they were caught....one was caught 2 miles back in the blue creek on lake martin and released at the piney woods landing which the upper part of the reservoir.....it required swimming back down river,across two large areas of open water and back into a cove 2 miles up in blue creek....
the other fish I mentioned was caught beside a stump in canal in southwest Lousiana,taken to a weigh-in and released about 12 miles from where it was caught...I'm told there is a network of canals/bayous in this area and to get back, this fish had to make several turns and traverse different bayous/canals to get back to where it was caught...
obviously fish (and most animals/birds) have a built in homing instinct that allows them to navigate back to where they were born....
as far as what effect removing a bass temporarily from the bed has,keep in mind that when fishing for bass in the spawning season,any fish you catch in shallow water may be guarding a bed whether you can see the bed or not....and.....most importantly,unless you are fishing a small pond,catching a fish off a bed in a large lake has no effect on the bass population because each spawning fish produces thousands more fry than the lake can sustain....

I am a crappie fisherman and have a couple of brush piles within a few hundred yards of a popular ramp for bass tournaments.
The day after a tournament the ditch pickles pile up on my brush and stay 2 or 3 days then they are gone.
I think the boat ride is hard on them and they move out to the first cover they can find to rest a while before moving on

I have been removed from my spawning bed 100�s of times but keep returning for over 30 years now. Just sayn!

I tagged a male and a female in the 90's and carried them 5 miles by water and dumped the in the middle of a deep cove. Knowing I would be bed fishing the area I caught them from days later. Well on the 3 rd day they both were on the bed I took them off with the tags still in place. So in my opinion they will still try and spawn or go back to the area they came from. Most of the bass I tagged back then stayed in the same areas all year,

That's TFF! Great info I always lean a bunch form Ya'll

Thanks Marc... I fished with you once and learned more from talking to you for the day then a dozen trips on my own!

I appreciate ya'll!