What do gobies and crayfish have to do with smallmouth beds?

They are the nest's primary looters. Round gobies and crayfish are dedicated egg-and-fry predators that swarm a smallmouth bed within seconds of the guarding male being pulled away — in goby-invaded waters like the Great Lakes, studies have documented dozens of gobies raiding a nest within a minute of removing the male. That is the mechanistic reason bed-fishing is controversial for this species and why males guard so violently in the first place. It also explains a tactical detail: goby and craw imitations dragged near beds get annihilated, because the male reads them as the exact enemy he exists to repel.

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