Not sure if this answers your questions, but of the 3 books I found that covered bass spawning habits from the Sunnyvale library I received slightly varied results.

In one book published in 1964, it said that the males only guard one nest for the spawn. Females can have 30,000 - 50,000 eggs and usually will spawns at sometimes 3 or more nests depending on how big the male is and the size of nest that he can handle. Males can often have nests of 15,000 - 60,000+ eggs and will stay on that nest untill for up to a week after the eggs are hatched.


Another books published in 1983 or 1984 said that average females hold 60,000 - 100,000 eggs and will generally lay eggs at 4 and up nests depending on the number of male nests, size of water, etc. Most males will hold around 50,000 to 200,000 (meaning the big boys) and will stay 7 - 10 days after the fish have hatched.


Both books sited bibliographies to research and also talked in detail about small mouths, largemouths, spotted, Northern vs. Florida strains, cross breeding, etc.

I'm willing to bet that this data is a bit out of date, however it shows that the females will typically spawn with different partners and at different times.

BTW, both books mentioned that bigger bass spawned earlier than the average bass. Seeing as how water temp in the SF Bay Area lakes didn't reach the magic temp until this past full moon, I would assume that the bigger bass already spawned out.

Vince
vince@theblankslate.com