How long does the male guard, and what is the fry ball?
Guarding can continue from eggs through the early free-swimming fry stage. A compact group of young fish near a guarding male is a brood, not proof that all adults are still spawning. Duration varies with temperature, development and brood survival; calendar dates cannot identify the end of guarding.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Spawning
- Do smallmouth and largemouth hybridize in the wild?
- What water temperature do smallmouth spawn at?
- Where do smallmouth build their nests?
- How deep do smallmouth spawn in ultra-clear water?
- Do female smallmouth leave right after spawning?
- Is bed fishing for smallmouth worse than for largemouth?
- Do river smallmouth spawn in the main river or run up tributaries?
- When do smallmouth spawn in the north vs the south?
Same topic, other species
- Is it wrong to keep spawning males off the beds? — Crappie
- How long do largemouth guard their fry? — Largemouth Bass
- What is a tiger muskie? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- What eats the eggs, if nothing guards them? — Yellow Perch
- Why are there closed seasons for pike in spring? — Northern Pike
- Why are there closed seasons for trout, and why do they differ by species? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)
- Do walleye eat during the spawning run? — Walleye