The Legendary Largemouth Bass
The Largemouth Bass can be found in ponds, lakes and slow moving streams throughout Ohio. They like to have stuff in the water that they can hide in and under like logs, and plants.
An average largemouth bass weighs about 1 to 2 pounds and is around 8 to 18 inches long. They get their name because their large mouth extends beyond the back edge of their eye.
The largemouth bass is typically a dark green color high on its back and a silvery green to white on its sides and belly. They also have a deep green stripe down the middle of their sides. The bass has all the same senses that people do: seeing, smelling, hearing, touching and tasting. They have excellent eyesight that lets them see with very little light or in very murky water.
The largemouth bass has one sense that we don’t, the lateral line. This lateral line is a row of nerve endings that runs down the sides of its body. This lets the largemouth bass feel movement in the water, like another fish swimming toward it.
The largemouth bass eats a lot of different things. They like to eat crayfish, small fish like shad and shiners, frogs, large bugs and salamanders. As water temperatures get warmer in the spring, they eat more than they do when the water is cold.
 The bass lays eggs in a nest in a process called spawning. These nests are usually in a shallow area where the water is no deeper than about 3 feet deep. A female can lay 2,000 to 12,000 eggs when spawning. The male bass watches over the eggs until they hatch. He then keeps an eye on the little fish until they are about an inch long.
Isn’t the Largemouth Bass legendary?
|