In this paper, we carry out some research on a predator–prey system with maturation delay, a stage structure for generalist predators and a Holling type-II functional response, which has already been proposed. First, for the delayed model, we obtain the conditions for the occurrence of stability switches of the positive equilibrium and possible Hopf bifurcation values owing to the growth of the value of the delay by applying the geometric criterion. It should be pointed out that when we suppose that the characteristic equation has a pair of imaginary roots λ = ± i ω (ω > 0) , we just need to consider i ω (ω > 0) due to the symmetry, which alleviates the computation requirements. Next, we investigate the nature of Hopf bifurcation. Finally, we conduct numerical simulations to verify the correctness of our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]