Will a smallmouth eat frogs, mice, fish eggs or a dead baitfish?
Frogs, sometimes; the rest, almost never. A smallmouth lives on rock and open water, not in lily pads, so it meets few frogs — river fish along grassy banks take a small one when it lands in front of them, and that is about all. Mice and ducklings have no real place in the diet; its surface strikes are aimed at baitfish and insects. Fish eggs are the reverse story: the smallmouth is the one being robbed, by gobies, crayfish and sunfish that swarm an unguarded bed. Dead food is a cold-water footnote — like the largemouth, a smallmouth will pick a dying baitfish off bottom when its metabolism is low, but it is a hunter of moving prey, and a moving bait beats a still one whenever fish are active.
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