No. Bass under stress, wether it be from wintering over and lack of food or oxygen levels being low show stress in a completely different way. Have you ever fished for bass in the winter months? If you have you might have caught a few with what we lovingly refer to as the "ick". Their fins will begin to erode between the rays and thier protective slime coat disappears and is "replaced" by a rough whitish colored coating. The fish will take when the opportunity presents itself but the lack of nutients in thier diet and the slow down in thier metabolisms bring on a appearence that is not very pleasing to the eye. I have had people tell me that they have seen this in larger bass over the last several seasons where the once abundant pogie population has all but diasspeared which leads to that oft heard theory of why the Menhaden/bunker/pogies, whatever name you call them by, must be protected as larger fish rely on them for certian very important nutrients, oils etc. I am not a scientist but some professionally trained icthyologists and marine biologists are leaning to that. Sea lice just happen to appear more when thier is a multitude of host animals like a big school of bass.
