Bass eat a lot of things: frogs, lizards, snakes, fish, etc.. But do they eat turtles? Yes of course they do, if a largemouth bass can fit a turtle into its mouth he’ll eat it.
But how do they react to a turtle on a spawning bed? TylersReelFishingattempts to answer that question with the help of an underwater camera and a soft plastic turtle lure.
Tyler found that when his turtle lure was directly on or adjacent to the spawning bed, most of the bass showed only a modicum of interest in it, mouthing it or picking it up briefly to move it off of the bed.
On the other hand, when the turtle was swimming freely in the water the bass seemed to be much more aggressive towards it. They ate it as though it was any other type of bait.
Now it’s hard to say why the bass reacted to his lure in the manner in which they did. This is not a very scientific test. Perhaps his lure and the fact that it didn’t look or move very “turtley” had something to do with it. Perhaps it was simply the mood of the bass on this particular day.
In order to reveal anything of true substance, an experiment like this really needs to be performed over a much longer length of time, using multiple lures that imitate turtles as well as live turtles.
As it is, this is simply an introductory peek into bass behavior on spawning beds. It’s too inconclusive to really tell how bass react to turtles when over their beds.
But it is a very fun video to watch and Tyler’s commentary is enthusiastic.
All credit for this great article goes to Wide Open Spaces. https://www.wideopenspaces.com/do-bass-eat-turtles-a-field-test-to-find-out/
