Quote:
Originally Posted by tis
That is very interesting. How do you think they get the mice etc? I never would have thought----
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Mice can swim, and if they make the mistake of going into the water and there is a good sized large mouth bass around, it's dinner time. I have personally seen them eat "Baby Ducklings" as well.
Not as popular as a fishing lure up north, but very popular down south.
Bass in Winnipesaukkee tend to go after beer cans, to get the crayfish that live inside them.
On a more serious note, I remember when I was a kid on Lake Winnisquam in the late 60's or early 70's there was a similar problem with white perch taking over the lake after the state tried to clean up the lake with chemicals to help control pollution before Laconia upgraded it's sewage treatment facilities. From what I understand it killed off the micro organisms that the bait fish survived on, then in turn killing off the the larger game fish due to no food supply. It was not uncommon back then to see thousands upon thousand of white perch feeding in schools on the surface.
At first glance you might think why didn't the game fish eat the white perch. They do but only when they're young. After they reach a certain size only very large fish can take them down and digest them leading to an over population of mature breeding fish that can out {compete} the slower reproducing species.
I would not be surprised if something similar is happening with the rock bass, where the predator / prey / food supply / breeding population/ habitat relationship has gotten out of balance or changed. I have been fishing this lake for a lot of years now and have seen a slow steady decline with regard to the number big warm water fish. Yes big fish can still be caught from time to time, it just seems like there is a lot less of them in recent years. I wonder if the chemicals the state is using to control invasive weeds these days is driving these fish to new areas of the lake to find food, hence the different reports of them showing up in the lake where they had never been seen before. Somehow Lake Winnisquam rebounded from all this and turned into a great place to fish.
Largemouth & Smallmouth Bass contrary to popular belief are not native to Lake Winnipesaukkee. They were introduced as well , but the rock bass seem to be truly undesirable.