Bass with Eggs

Have y'all been catching bass with eggs already? We had a tournament in Verret the last weekend in November and the females had eggs already. Early spawn?

i have seen egg sack develop in october some years. January is about right for this area when they begin to move up and males begin looking for nested areas. I'm curious though as how the weather if it does will affect this years spawn.

Right after spawn bass, and other fish, begin using energy to develop the egg mass for the next spawn. It takes a lot of energy to develop an egg mass of a few thousand ripe eggs and that takes more than a few months to happen. Near to spawning time the egg mass is apparent externally as it is becoming quite large and extends the belly of the fish as the eggs grow larger and larger.
Bass spawn is temperature dependent and occurs somewhere between 68 and 75 degrees F. It is also dependent on the daylength. In a hatchery, you can manipulate the water temperature to induce a bass to spawn earlier than bass in natural waters but only to a certain extent. If the daylength is too short they will not spawn. So a bass in a hatchery can be induced to spawn earlier than a bass in a natural body of water but they cannot be induced to spawn months earlier.
Bass in natural bodies of water will spawn in stages of temperature in the early spring and spring depending on what type of water they live in. That's why you will normally see bass in the marsh spawning very early, followed by bass in ponds, then rivers and the swamps of rivers, then natural lakes that have shallow water and last in reservoirs with deep, cold water that takes a long time to warm up.
Even in large reservoirs the spawn can be different between the north end of the reservoir where there is more shallow water and the south end of the reservoir where there is more deep water. In this case the time spawn can be different by as much as two weeks.

Bass in south Louisiana spawn in Feb. first full moon and degree water

...don't forget we in confused cycles of weather and temps...ever since the world axis tilted a couple of degrees a few years ago !!! cheer ???

in large reservoirs such as toledo the spawn difference is actually months from the north to south end.

Don't understand spawning cycle but I think it is not that complicated in the bass world. To prove my point I remember years ago when a major storm killed bass in the spillway. Bass clubs started to catch bass around this time and worked with Dow Chemical to restore the bass. All they did to my knowledge was put the bass in a Dow pond and come the spring they had millions of small bass. Now i don't think there were any fish in those ponds other than these caught bass. When I heard about this I though that the bass would not spawn that fast but they sure did and these bass took a major step in the return of the spillway so fast.

In fishing for these green fish for over 55 years of my life.... I have learned a lot about them. I have also tagged many over the years in my area of the marsh and got some surprising results. Some of these bass will start developing eggs in August, but most in Sept. and Oct. The egg sacs will be very small then. Some years, the bass down here start spawning early, and some years... they spawn a little later... it all depends on the water temps and the severity of the winter. I would bet this year, it will be a early spawn. Bass are very Phyto sensitive... Phyto meaning the amount of light during a day. The days will gradually grow slightly longer from now on. In 2009, we had a similar warm, wet winter as we are having now. I was catching spawning bass in the last 2 weeks of January. I caught two ten pound bass one day, Jan. 16th... and both those bass were making beds. They will spawn in groups... and the full moon seems to trigger most of the bass to move up and start. I have seen the bass here spawn into May.... but they do not spawn that late very often here. February and March are the two main months for the spawning dwon here. One thing I have noticed about the really big females in this area over the last 10-12 years.... is that once they drop their eggs, they start moving out, and let the male bass guard the nest. I believe this is from the increased fishing pressure around here now during the spawn. I have caught large bass coming into a bayou or pond, and tagged them, and 4-5 days later, caught them at the mouth of the bayou... coming back out already. So, that does not give you a very large window to catch the few really big ones. If you catch the bass during the spawn....let the 3, 4, and larger ones go. Keep the 1 and 2 lbers. if you want some to eat. The larger bass are the better spawners, and their genetics will be a lot better, producing the better size bass in the coming years.

City Park did it right for years. I grew up in the Irish Channel and use to ride my bike to City Park to fish bass. This was some 64 years ago and don't think you could do this today with all the nuts. The Park had some of the best bass fishing you could find. We use to catch 30 to 40 bass. There were several men that fished the park almost every day. Joe Buck was the Band director at the school right by the park and he fished it all the time. The paper did a story on him with over 50 6 pound plus bass he had caught and mounted. The park would close every spring. They set the time by walking the banks and would be closed for about 6 weeks. We were so lucky to have this great fishing in the heart of a city like New Orleans. Please don't give me a hard time on catch and release but Rocket has it so right don't keep a big bass in the spring unless it is the only one or two you catch and need a fry. But in the spring catching bass for a fry is not hard.

I was catching bass with small egg sacks about a month ago in Lafitte.

CaptJS, I still love to go fish City Park and they still have beautiful bass. But damn, they sure can be finicky. I like to go fish the bridge off of Magnolia Dr. Throw a frog and pull it across the duck weed and they just blow up on it.

The production of eggs doesnt happen overnight, it takes some time. Most fish you catch in the winter will start having eggs develop. Nothing really groundbreaking

...How sweet is was Capt.JS...live 'Smimps' paid off, if 'ya could 'Outrun' that 35 y/o fart Eddie at the at 'da Casino boat rental ...a 12 y/o 'Bunny' w/four ' Keds' on always won !!!!....cheers

Eddie lol he was worse than FBI for the dollar. Remember the gang that would snag the shad on the Mr Champ and Dixie S you could not touch the shad if you did the bass would not hit. Boy for about 20 years I could not wait for the fall of the year to drive around City Park with my fishing equipment and find the bass schooling. It was like a jungle back then dirt roads and 24 miles of shore line to fish.

I knew a few guys from those days who were big Park fishermen, and had won the Park rodeo. Unfortunately, I found out later that some were snagging the bass with trebles off the nest.