What Bass Eat Black bass, particularly Largemouth bass, will eat practically anything that moves and they can get into their mouths that doesn't fight back so hard they get hurt.

But, this doesn't mean they routinely eat odd items like snakes, birds, turtles, ducklings, or bread crumbs. There have been more food habit studies made on bass that any other type of scientific study. They all found the same basic facts. Adult bass diets consist mainly of smaller fish and small crustaceans (shrimp, crawfish, and small crabs in brackish water), and some frogs. All the other things they eat like snakes, ducklings, salamanders, field mice, whatever ___ are incidental and usually less than 2 percent of the total bass diet.

The dominant bass food is almost always the most readily available prey of suitable size. With second place going to the next most readily catchable prey type. Tadpoles are easy prey if they blunder into deep water. That likely is the reason frogs tend to lay eggs only in very shallow shoreline edges where bass can not range easily. It is also why we see almost no tadpoles or larval salamanders sharing deeper water with abundant bass.

Bass that try to eat a toad, which has toxic/poisonous/foul-tasting skin, learn never to eat another. They also avoid frogs thereafter, apparently unable to see the differences. Bass that try to eat baby turtles quickly learn turtles have claws and are hard to crush, kill, and swallow. Tiny turtles claw and tear up the gills and throats of bass. Usually a bass only tries a turtle once. Small baby snakes may be easy prey, but things that fight back and might even win are usually avoided. Most big bass don't try to eat big snakes and cottonmouth snakes are to be avoided. Even lunker bass are more likely to eat a 2- to 3-inch crawfish than to take on a full grown 7-inch super-clawed, hard-shelled monster. That claws up, face the bass, and snap and pinch tactic of crawfish exists because it WORKS and keeps them alive in hostile waters.

I surmise that big worms don't really imitate big snakes, because bass eat them so readily. Small worms are likely taken because they imitate small fish. Besides shad and minnows, there are many small catfish, and darters on the bottom of most waters, and these fish are preferred and easy to catch bass foods. A worm, fry, or grub worked slowly along the bottom is a good imitator. Keep in mind that bas really don’t see details very well. That’s why the hit lures that a 4-year old human knows aren’t real minnows.

I suggest anglers usually stick to fish and crawfish imitations for maximum success at bassing. But, there are times when the rare and unusual is needed to interest an inactive fish or two. I love to experiment with odd baits, but most "helicopter lures" and duckling imitations really don't work very well. The Hannon snake head worked, as it helped float the typical sinking plastic worms of the 80s and allowed a floating-worm presentation. But, I suspect the look of a snake wasn’t very important and that any floating worm of equal size would work about as well.

by Ralph Manns