Bass stomach contents

[Gomtor]

Is it a good idea to check the stomach contents once in a while at different dams to get an idea on what the bass are feeding on or not? Your opinions?

Also, do any of you have pics or stories of stuff fish burped up or you found inside?

[Riprap]

Gomtor, morning. I would advise against it unless the fish are being culled for research or a slot management size limit is in place. Or, of course, if you are taking a few fish for the pan. Bass are not on the critically endangered list afterall......

I have found plastic baits with and without hooks, snakes and of course the usual food that bass would consume in their waters. I have also found lots of nothing in small thin stunted bass that were part of a cull and that's why they looked like they did - they were not eating! Is your reason to try and match the hatch or?????

[Gomtor]

Im not intending ro go on a massacre :blue-lol:
And will never take a fish out of water unless it is going to be used for something or eaten. Mainly to match he hatch in areas where it is difficult to get bites.

[Riprap]

The term match the hatch is very broad. It basically refers to the "predominant" food source which one will expect the bass to eat in a certain water. On the other side, why do we catch fish on craws, pink trick worms, lizards etc when none of these form part of a bass's diet in SA. It's because bass are opportunistic predators and somewhere in the back of that complex brain, they instinctively know that that is what they ate back in the US or in the Netherlands where our first largies came from.

I personally think you would do better to ask about those difficult bite waters on here but it's your choice at the end of the day.