Do bass eat turtles?

I was looking through a catalog at plastic bait molds, and saw a mold
for a 3" turtle. Maybe that was intended as a sal****er bait, I've never
seen a turtle shaped bait before. I often fish a pond that has many
turtles, but never considered them as possible food for bass. Anybody
know for sure?

"Henry Hefner" wrote in message
...
I was looking through a catalog at plastic bait molds, and saw a mold
for a 3" turtle. Maybe that was intended as a sal****er bait, I've never
seen a turtle shaped bait before. I often fish a pond that has many
turtles, but never considered them as possible food for bass. Anybody
know for sure?

There's at least one biologist who says that bass eat small turtles.

http://www.rice.edu/wetlands/Newspapers/nws50_r.html

Henry Hefner wrote:
I was looking through a catalog at plastic bait molds, and saw a mold
for a 3" turtle. Maybe that was intended as a sal****er bait, I've never
seen a turtle shaped bait before. I often fish a pond that has many
turtles, but never considered them as possible food for bass. Anybody
know for sure?
Did you ever see the movie "bigmouth"?

There is a scene in it where a big LM is on a bed and a turtle glides
in. You never saw anything get attacked so violently. It didn't get
'eaten', but it did get grabbed and taken 8 or 10 feet out of the bed
before being spit out.

In article , Henry Hefner
wrote:

I was looking through a catalog at plastic bait molds, and saw a mold
for a 3" turtle. Maybe that was intended as a sal****er bait, I've never
seen a turtle shaped bait before. I often fish a pond that has many
turtles, but never considered them as possible food for bass. Anybody
know for sure?


I once caught about a 3# bass in a farm pond and in it's stomach I found a
small snapping turtle about 1 1/4 " in diameter

Don Kellogg wrote:
In article , Henry Hefner
wrote:


I was looking through a catalog at plastic bait molds, and saw a mold
for a 3" turtle. Maybe that was intended as a sal****er bait, I've never
seen a turtle shaped bait before. I often fish a pond that has many
turtles, but never considered them as possible food for bass. Anybody
know for sure?



I once caught about a 3# bass in a farm pond and in it's stomach I found a
small snapping turtle about 1 1/4 " in diameter


Thanks, guys! I knew I'd get quick answers here.

The tape is called BigMouth it has Homer Circle in it. I would suspect that
a Bass would hit anything that it sees as a threat to the nest.
Great film to see if you can get past the background music. Reminds me of an
old porno flick. Not that I would know.


"RichZ" wrote in message
...
Henry Hefner wrote:
I was looking through a catalog at plastic bait molds, and saw a mold for
a 3" turtle. Maybe that was intended as a sal****er bait, I've never seen
a turtle shaped bait before. I often fish a pond that has many turtles,
but never considered them as possible food for bass. Anybody know for
sure?
Did you ever see the movie "bigmouth"?

There is a scene in it where a big LM is on a bed and a turtle glides in.
You never saw anything get attacked so violently. It didn't get 'eaten',
but it did get grabbed and taken 8 or 10 feet out of the bed before being
spit out.

That tape series,Bigmouth and Bigmouth Forever by Glen Lau are
incredible.The footage of bass in their world reacting to what natural prey
they look for and what we throw at them will make you a better fisherman.
In the opening scene of one of the tapes Hank Parker is sifting water with a
spinnerbait and comes to an underwater stump.He throws the blade on both
sides with no takers as you see big bass move away from the stump.Hank lays
down the spinnerbait rod and tosses a worm right at the stump and a big fish
nails it.
That taught me to always give a fishy looking place more baits to look at in
different colors or sizes rather than just "staying with what has worked
before" ho-hum mentality and moving to the next target.
Get a set of these tapes and watch them with the rewind button ready and
don't plan on doing anything for a litle while.
Oh,they will also eat a baby duck in a heartbeat!
"RichZ" wrote in message
...
Henry Hefner wrote:
I was looking through a catalog at plastic bait molds, and saw a mold for
a 3" turtle. Maybe that was intended as a sal****er bait, I've never seen
a turtle shaped bait before. I often fish a pond that has many turtles,
but never considered them as possible food for bass. Anybody know for
sure?
Did you ever see the movie "bigmouth"?

There is a scene in it where a big LM is on a bed and a turtle glides in.
You never saw anything get attacked so violently. It didn't get 'eaten',
but it did get grabbed and taken 8 or 10 feet out of the bed before being
spit out.

Henry Hefner wrote:

I was looking through a catalog at plastic bait molds, and saw a mold
for a 3" turtle. Maybe that was intended as a sal****er bait, I've never
seen a turtle shaped bait before. I often fish a pond that has many
turtles, but never considered them as possible food for bass. Anybody
know for sure?
Although I never tried it, when I was a kid some of the men that bass
fished said they bought turtles at the dime store and used them to catch
bass off the bed. They would hook it in the back leg or put a rubber
band around it to hold the hook. They said it worked great.

Can't say I've witnessed that before, but the opposite sure is true.

Twenty-five years ago, I was a scoutmaster of a little troop up in Grainger
Co., TN. We lived around the foot of Clinch mountain, where we climbed,
explored, and camped out on farms.

On one outing we pitched tents on a grassy shelf above to a farmer's stocked
pond. My objective was to teach the boys some survival skills, and we made a
learning experience out of our evening meal. The boys peeled slender
saplings for poles, strung them with line unraveled from the ends of their
backpack straps or web belts, bent hooks from first-aid kit safety pins and
collected salamanders, grasshoppers, and grubs for bait. Fish were
plentiful, and as boys caught fish, they were strung on willow wands stuck
into the bank. The successful anglers built cooking fires while the rest
continued fishing. When the coals were right, corn meal ready and the bacon
drippings hot, the boys scampered down to the pond to fetch the guests of
honor. They came back with nothing but fish heads. Forgot about the turtles.

Plan B was to have everything ready in the cooking area, catch a fish, run
it up the hill, fillet it on the log we used as a chopping block, roll the
fillet in meal, fry it up, and chow down before the fish's autonomic nervous
system even shut down. (See earlier discussions on fish and pain.) Kind of
eerie, to have a fish observe you, seeming to gasp for breath, as you
enjoyed its contribution to the meal, but it appealed to the troop of
seventh and eighth grade boys. I bet the boys learned quite a bit from that
meal.

By the way.... speaking of the "pain" issue, I did a little more work on a
post I made here a few weeks back and Ronnie published it at
AboutFreshwater Fishing. He added an afterthought of mine as a short sequel
this week... the "so what?" that was missing in my ROFB post. If you're
interested, read it at:
http://fishing.about.com/od/fisherme...ljoepeta_2.htm .

Joe
________________________
"Ronnie Garrison" wrote in message
.. .
Henry Hefner wrote:

I was looking through a catalog at plastic bait molds, and saw a mold
for a 3" turtle. Maybe that was intended as a sal****er bait, I've never
seen a turtle shaped bait before. I often fish a pond that has many
turtles, but never considered them as possible food for bass. Anybody
know for sure?
Although I never tried it, when I was a kid some of the men that bass
fished said they bought turtles at the dime store and used them to catch
bass off the bed. They would hook it in the back leg or put a rubber
band around it to hold the hook. They said it worked great.

Joe Haubenreich wrote:
Can't say I've witnessed that before, but the opposite sure is true.

Twenty-five years ago, I was a scoutmaster of a little troop up in Grainger
Co., TN. We lived around the foot of Clinch mountain, where we climbed,
explored, and camped out on farms.

snip

Man, I haven't seen the name of Clinch Mountain in print for a long
time. Do you know any Sacketts? I guess I'll have to dig out my old
Louis L'Amour books. And I knew turtles ate bass, I had a few eaten off
a stringer when I was a kid. (I started to write "when I was a LAD" for
all of you guys that miss jajwuth)