Chauvin angler finds a largemouth in the middle of a large meal

Bass had been feeding on a school of shad, fisherman says

Casey Arceneaux has seen lots of bass, but not one like he scooped out of the water when he and his family were fishing off of Bayou Black last fall.

At first glance it looks like a bass with two tails. But as it turns out, one 12-inch bass was trying to make a meal of another 12-inch bass.

The incident occurred when bass were hitting a school of shad in the middle of Willow Tree Canal near Gibson.

They saw a fish struggling on top of the water.

“At first I thought he had too many shad and couldn’t go back down,” Arceneaux said. “I used the trolling motor to go to him and then I saw that he had a real mouthful.

“They looked like twins,” he said. “I don’t know if they were chasing shad and got into a head-on collision, or if one was just really hungry.”

Mitch Hoffpauir, inland fisheries freshwater biologist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said cannibalism amongst largemouth bass is more common with fingerlings.

But he wasn’t surprised that a bigger bass would attempt to eat such a huge meal.

“In sampling, we’ve seen all sorts of things that bass have swallowed and partially digested,” he said. “We’ve seen 14- to 16-inch bass with 12-inch common carp in their mouth.”

Hoffpauir said the digestive system of a bass allows it to process whatever part of the meal makes it to the stomach. Then, it’s possible it could just gradually consume the entire fish.

With this case, however, since the fish couldn’t submerge itself properly, Hoffpauir said it would have been more susceptible to attack from a garfish or some other predator.

But if a bass needs a meal, it will try to eat whatever is available, he said.

“Basic instincts is all they have,” Hoffpauir said. “If they’re hungry and they need food, they’ll go after whatever fits in their mouth. It’s just a survival instinct.”

Arceneaux removed the stuck fish and released the attacking bass. He kept the bass that had been lodged in the other’s mouth because, although it was alive, he didn’t think it would have survived.

And  his wife Kandy and two kids, Claire, 6, and Allie, 11, got to see it all.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that,” Arceneaux said. “Other than catching speckled trout with other speckled trout in their bellies, I’ve never seen a bass like that, for sure.”

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Patrick Bonin is the former editor of Louisiana Sportsman magazine and LouisianaSportsman.com.