How long do bass eggs take to hatch when the water is murky?

Bass eggs need the sunshine to to survive. When a male bass makes its nest too deep or if the water is too murky the entire clutch of eggs might be lost. It may take the bass eggs up to 5 days to hatch when the conditions are not optimal.

How many bass eggs survive?

Bass survival is a numbers game. Of the 2,000 to 7,000 eggs that a female can lay per pound of here body weight, only .01 to .05 of those potential baby bass will survive into adulthood. Nest raiders like bluegills, crawdads, other bass, minnows and lots of other fish species take their toll on the eggs once they are laid.

A nest may have as many as 12,000 eggs in it but less than a dozen of those are likely to survive long enough to reach 10 inches in length.

When a male bass is caught while guarding its nest, it is estimated that 100 eggs per minute can be consumed by egg predators in its absence. If a male is caught repeatedly, then it might abandon the nest completely which will result in a total loss of the eggs.

This is one of the reasons that the female bass lays her eggs in multiple nests that multiple males have built. That way if one of the nests loses all of its eggs to predators there will be a couple of other nests with different males that might incubate and hatch successfully.

This is also a great way to diversify the gene pool to make sure that only the strongest bass genes will be passed forward to the next bass generation.

How many bass eggs do females have?

A female largemouth bass may carry 70,000 eggs within her if she weighs 10 pounds. In general, the larger the female, the more eggs that she will produce. BUT some of the larger females will make larger eggs so she won’t carry more eggs but they will be larger in size. Larger eggs produce larger fry which gives those baby bass a better chance of survival.

Producing and laying eggs is very taxing on the female bass. That is why it is so important for females to feed well before the spawn so that here body can produce healthy eggs to propagate the species.

Once the females have laid all of their eggs they will head to deep water near the nesting sites and recuperate. The males on the other hand will guard the nests until the babies get to an inch in length. Then they will abandon the nest and start feeding voraciously to renourish their bodies after their egg guarding fast.

Luckily for the bass the spawning cylce of bluegills and shad is right after the bass spawn. This means that there is usually plenty of forage around for the worn out male and female bass to recharge their energy supplies with.

How long do largemouth bass live?

This question depends upon where the bass if living. There are some parts of the country where the bass have a tougher life and only average 10 years of life. Other parts of the country the bass have it easy and can live on average to 16 years. Bass usually have an easier life in the Southern states because of the warmer temperatures and abundant food resources.

The variables affecting how long a bass will live include water quality, available prey items, invasive species competition and weather conditions where they live.

How long does the spawn last?

The spawn usually lasts for 10 to 14 days. That is a very small window and it is variable because different lakes will have different water temperatures and conditions. In other words, one lake that is more exposed to the sun’s warming rays will have spawning fish in it sooner than one a few miles away that is mostly shaded and therefore cooler.

How do you know when bass are spawning?

You will know that the bass are spawning when you see the circular nests in the shallows. These indentations will usually have a male very close to them or within them. That male is defending that nest site from other males and egg eating predators.

The spawn begins when the water temperatures stabilize above 60 degrees. This triggers the largemouth bass to build nests and spawn. The water temperature range of 60 to 75 degrees is optimal for largemouth eggs to hatch and thrive.

Why do the male largemouth bass guard the nests?

The hard part about spawning is producing the eggs. Producing 10,000 eggs is very costly in terms of the amount of energy that it takes from the female largemouth bass. By comparison, producing sperm to fertilize the eggs is not very taxing on the males so they have more energy to build and protect the nests than the females do after the eggs have been laid.

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