# What's up with this bass?



## Charlie Two Tracks (Aug 20, 2012)

This bass is mostly head! Very small body for its size. I was wondering if it was an old bass or just the way it grew up.


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## richg99 (Aug 20, 2012)

I've caught a few bass like that over the years. In the most extreme case, the head looked like a two pounder.....and the body that of a one pound fish. In that case, it appeared that the fish had ingested a plastic worm which was blocking most normal food down its gullet. 

More commonly, in my little TX pond, a few years ago, we had a large number of fish shaped like yours. My theory was that they were not getting enough food. Too many bass, not enough baitfish. That condition seems to have cured itself over the last year or so. Now, the fish look "normal" once again. Some of us did start removing more of the smaller fish.

Did the fish come from an area that has very few bass taken out? A local parks and wildlife rep here (Illinois) told us to take a greater number of the smaller legal fish out.... to balance our pond's feed stock and population. 

regards, Rich


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## DocWatson (Aug 20, 2012)

As Rich said, it's a malnourished fish. Just like any other species, if you underfeed something it's growth patterns are altered or disrupted. It could be disease, injury or lack of available food in it's lake or pond. If it's just one fish in the lake, it's probably sick or injured. If all the fish are like that, the lake needs to be culled or stocked with baitfish.


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## Rippen Lips (Aug 20, 2012)

Parasites could also be a issue. I have caught several underweight fish this summer that had intestinal parasites.


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## richg99 (Aug 20, 2012)

If it is a single fish, then it may have swallowed a plastic worm. Just like "lap bands" for more hefty humans.....the stomach won't have as much room for proper foods. 

I caught one once that had a partial worm sticky out of its anus. The plastic worm made it that far....
Rich


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## xbacksideslider (Aug 20, 2012)

Common when there's overpopulation of bass, the ratio of bass to bait is too high.

Very common in private ponds where too few juvenile (1 - 2 lbs) fish are taken, where there's too much catch and release of those small to mid size fish. Or there may not be enough safe spawing ground, or too little cover, for the young bait fish; they can't build any size, they all get eaten as fry or fingerlings - and then there's famine. 

In pressured lakes/ponds, you may get the opposite, an imbalance, lots of bait and too few, but big/wily/cautious predators whose overmatched fry is eaten by hordes of adult blue gill and crappie.


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## Charlie Two Tracks (Aug 20, 2012)

That is the only one I have caught like that. The other large bass have looked normal. There are a fair amount of bluegills in the lake but they are not stunted. He must have had something wrong with him. He was caught on a shad rap above the weeds on a sunken island with about three feet of water above it. I recently retired and was able to spend nearly three weeks straight, fishing that lake. I usually don't keep the bass but one day I kept enough to eat. When I cut a two lb. bass up, I cut his stomach open to see what he was eating. Inside was a 3/0 hook and about an inch of O.D. green braided line. The hook was not into any tissue or deteriorated very much at all. A few days later I caught a smaller bass that had over two feet of this same line sticking out his mouth with a hook set way down there. I cut the line and let him go. I can't figure out how this guy is getting fish breaking his braided line when the fish are so small. Strange.


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## Zum (Aug 20, 2012)

He probably cutting his line with a deep hooked fish.
Like others have mentioned,alot of times a fish looking like that will have plastics in it's stomach.


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## Charlie Two Tracks (Sep 11, 2012)

Here is one I got this past Sunday at 3:30 pm using a Gander Mountain craw with a 1/4 oz. black bullet weight. Temperature had dropped overnight and the wind was out of the North at 15-20 mph. Got him off of a sunken island and just after a guy went by in his bass boat. He was throwing top water and I was glad he didn't see me get the fish off of the bottom. This is out of the same water as the first picture. Most of the bass look real good.


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## 00 mod (Sep 16, 2012)

That is another good fish, but also looks malnourished! I would have said the first one could have had a plastic worm stopping it up, but looks like there is a lack of food or something in your fishing hole!

Jeff


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