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Summary: Bed fishing and bass populations
Fishing For bass on spawning beds
is controversial, with anglers and fish-
eries managers expressing concern
about the practice. Surprisingly, how-
ever, very little fisheries research has
addressed whether this issue is truly a
threat to bass populations or bass
fisheries.
Several studies led by Dr. Dave
Philipp and Dr. Cory Suski of the Illi-
nois Natural History Survey have
proved that removing male bass from a
nest often causes loss of the bass eggs
and larvae. If the male is removed
from the bed, in some cases only for a
few minutes, it is likely to lose the eggs
because of nest predators such as blue-
gill, shiners and other fish. However,
the question that has not been ad-
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