Do Bass Eat Turtles? Here's a Field Test to Find Out

How do bass behave when a turtle ventures into their spawning bed area? Do they view turtles as food, a threat or as something more benign? 

Bass eat a lot of things: frogs, lizards, snakes, fish, etc.. But do they eat turtles? Yes of course they do, if a largemouth bass can fit a turtle into its mouth he'll eat it.

But how do they react to a turtle on a spawning bed? TylersReelFishing attempts to answer that question with the help of an underwater camera and a soft plastic turtle lure.

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Tyler found that when his turtle lure was directly on or adjacent to the spawning bed, most of the bass showed only a modicum of interest in it, mouthing it or picking it up briefly to move it off of the bed.

On the other hand, when the turtle was swimming freely in the water the bass seemed to be much more aggressive towards it. They ate it as though it was any other type of bait.

Now it's hard to say why the bass reacted to his lure in the manner in which they did. This is not a very scientific test. Perhaps his lure and the fact that it didn't look or move very "turtley" had something to do with it. Perhaps it was simply the mood of the bass on this particular day.

In order to reveal anything of true substance, an experiment like this really needs to be performed over a much longer length of time, using multiple lures that imitate turtles as well as live turtles.

As it is, this is simply an introductory peek into bass behavior on spawning beds. It's too inconclusive to really tell how bass react to turtles when over their beds.

But it is a very fun video to watch and Tyler's commentary is enthusiastic.

Like what you see here? You can read more great articles by David Smith at his facebook page, Stumpjack Outdoors.

NEXT: Crazy Topwater Frog Strikes and Boat Flipping an 8-Pound Bass