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Bass Spawning, Habits & Disease Control
Bass Spawning
Old timers use to say that bass spawn when dogwoods bloom in the spring. This actually isn't far from the truth. Bass will begin spawning in late February or March in the South. Spawning activity takes place later in the North.
OLDER FISH
Older fish usually spawn first and spawning usually occurs first on the north end of a body of water, which warms up first. Females can have up to 13,000 eggs per pound of female, with older fish having fewer on a per pound basis. The first spawns from a female are the largest. After a female spawns, she will move off or be run off by the male. A few days later, immature eggs left in the ovary will ripen, and the female will find another male to spawn with. The first male is usually too busy caring for the eggs or fry to spawn for a while.
Bass Eggs
Bass eggs are a little bigger than the head of a pin and take one to three days to hatch, depending on water temperature. When eggs first hatch, the fry do not have mouth parts or fins, and have the egg yolk attached. At this stage they are called sac fry. They will stay on the bottom living on the yolk for about a week. At this point, with mouth parts and fins developed and the heavy yolk used up, they will start to swim around searching for food. Now they are called swim-up fry, and they begin eating small zooplankton such as rotifers or daphnia. The male will continue to guard the fry until they are about a half inch long. He will then either scatter the fry or abandon them. At about one month old, or an inch long, the fry are considered fingerlings and begin to eat other fish. The water has usually warmed up to about 75°F at this point and bluegill are spawning, giving young bass lots of food.
Diseases of Spawning Bass
Spawning is hard on bass. Males often will not eat the whole time they are courting females, then guarding eggs and fry. The tail of males will get shredded and bloody fanning out a nest, providing a site for infections. Water molds (Saprolegnia) and red-sore disease (Epistylis) are the two main diseases that the pond owner may notice this time of year.
Water molds are found everywhere in soil and fresh water. They normally feed on dead organic matter, but will infect bass when sores provide a method of entry. Drops in water temperature, especially below 59°F can trigger an outbreak. This disease appears as a cottony, white growth on the skin or gills. Over time, it can become colored due to the presence of algae or debris. When removed from the water, Saprolegnia looks slimy. This disease is hard to treat in ponds, and really doesn't need treatment. Once water temperatures rise above 70°F, Saprolegnia (or Sap, as it is called) is not a problem.
Epistylis, What? Epistylis is a protozoan that by itself actually does little damage to a fish. However, secondary bacterial infections are common, which cause bleeding and give red-sore disease the appearance of red jelly. The protozoan only uses the fish as a point of attachment, and feeds on bacteria and organic matter in the water. This disease is common in warm waters with large amounts of organic matter present.
Treatment
Treatment of both diseases consists of cleaning up the organic matter. Quit feeding your fish and don't treat weeds with herbicides, since both activities increase the organic load. If possible, you can flush out the pond with clean water. You can also treat your pond with 2 ppm (5.4 pounds) potassium permanganate per acre foot of water. This will not attack the disease directly, but will "burn up" the organic matter, which will starve the organisms. Be careful, potassium permanganate will burn the skin. Also, 8 ppm will burn the gills of fish, killing them. It is best to put this out behind a boat, so that the prop can mix the chemical. While these diseases look bad, they are usually not a cause for alarm. Infected fish will recover if the organic content of the pond is reduced.
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