I think you hit it on the head with the stocker opportunity Rob. If you put a trout and a gill in front on a good sized bass and it had to choose, I too think the trout would be the choice. Stockers, as you've said before, are stupid. They don't really seem to understand the environment they are placed in. They swim around the lake looking for food, and they are often in open water, passing by all those ambush points for a big bass to hide in a rather oblivious nature.

Gills and other sunfish are different though. Bass do predate on baby gills from the time the baby gills are in the nest, and I think other sunfish have bass imprinted on their mind as a predator. Which is why I think erratic, fast retrieves seem to work best for sunfish baits. A bluegill or small red ear isn't going to swim calmly through the shallows past ambush points for bass. They are gonna gun it out of the danger zone, because they know something will eat them otherwise. I think bass either react and eat a gill when it slows suddenly or get disoriented, or when its wounded and moving erratically. Like you said also, gills are spiny. When a bass eats a bluegill or other sunfish, I believe it is gonna strike fast and kill its prey quickly, before it can defend itself via the spikes. If a 'gill sees the bass beforehand, it will flare its spikes and start to run, and then the bass is in danger. Maybe the fish like SMB8ER's with the gills in their throats were too slow on the draw and got spiked during the final part of the attack.

I've never really seen a baby bass bite. I know they work, and bass do the cannibal deal, but for some reason, I've observed bass a fair amount and have never seen one get cannibalized. I have seen a bigger fish chase smaller 1lbers away a lot, and I think that its less of a hunger trigger and more of territory instinct.