San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

I was out at Parker on the River and saw a 20lb striper floundering on the surface, went over and picked it up and it had a 3lb bass stuck in it's mouth..the bass had a baby bluegill stuck in it's mouth! I'm not surprised by what eats what anymore!

Both of those cannibalism incidents sound like someone thought they were being funny. Maybe they were sitting off to the side filming the shock and awe with their phones

StinkyPinky23 wrote: Tue Jun 04, 2024 9:26 am Both of those cannibalism incidents sound like someone thought they were being funny. Maybe they were sitting off to the side filming the shock and awe with their phones

Yeah...that sounds very fishy.

I’m serious, I want someone to spend the entire day at el cap or San vee throwing a bullshooter and report back. To think fish are crushing giant bluegills on the regular is ridiculous. It is absolutely random and probably 100% reactionary and not predatory

Back to the original topic... thinning out competing species will help the bass population and size increase, but thinning out the bass population directly is the best way to get bigger bass. If the goal is to make giant bass you want an "unhealty" few bass in the lake, I don't know if I want to go back to the post "keep and eat everything" environment that produced all the 20lb LMB of the past, those fish look terrible. I don't think we ever could get back to that situation even if we tried though, not enough fish being taken, environmental factors and regs changing, keep what you want within the rules and see what happens, unfortunately I don't think the difference will be noticeable.

Good point there but hard to do for some of us bass heads. Before I feel sad killing any bass and get kind of angry when I saw some keeping bass. I stop fishing with one guy when I found out he uses baby bass as bait ( also teaching his kid).
Nowadays I don’t feel as strong as before I don’t care if they keep some bass but upset when they keep small crappie. Living in fishing community, POA even stock bass, crappies and bluegill almost every year per recommendation by “bass club. I’m not sure what are they thinking, maybe they don’t catch enough bass or crappie like I do LOL.

match the hatch...