Beaver Angler, New To Forum

[J-Doc]

Greetings everyone!

I've been fishing Beaver Lake for about 2 years now with this year being my second year of truely "fishing" where I have been fishing from a boat. My bud has Greg Bohannon's old Ranger so we go out as frequently as we can. I fish from an 18ft flat boat with a 55hp Yamaha (borrowed from father-in-law) but it gets the job done especially in the back of coves. I plan on getting a 19ft Xpress this fall or winter though.

I haven't fished Beaver as much as I'd like this year but I have seen a lot of new cross-bred species. I'd never heard of meanmouth bass till this year and I've seen cross-breeds between white and black bass (goofy looking fish).

Here's a 4lb white/black from last fall just to backup my discovery. Notice the small stripes and football shaped body?

Here's another one from this spring near Lost Bridge. This one is lighter but has a small mouth and football shaped body. She weighed 2lbs 7oz.

So, I'm a new member just saying hello to the forum. I look forward to sharing tips and info from my home lake!

[Bill Butts]

J-Doc~

Thanks for your post and interesting pics.

I've heard about and seen pics of the "meanmouths", but never heard of a black x white hybrid.

The lines on your fish in the first pic certainly are visible, but what makes you think or sure that it is the type of hybrid you claim?

I ask this not to be a jerk, but to attempt to verify and learn about something I don't know and have never heard of.

It would seem nearly impossible for a black x white to happen in the natural world, since what most of us know as the black bass family (largemouth, smallmouth and Kentucky/spotted) are nest-building spawners in lakes, whereas the Temperate basses family (striped, hybrid striped and white) are free-swimming stream/river(almost always) spawners.

Not to say that a fisheries biologist couldn't take eggs and sperm from some combination of these two families and artificially reproduce a hybrid specie in a hatchery lab.

So far, some quick Googling has turned up nothing.

Please post some additional info about your experience and understanding of this hybrid fish.

Thanks in advance for your follow-up.

Bill

[Martin]

Ahhhhh......... It looks like a Kentucky to me. Also called a spotted bass here in the Ozarks.

[J-Doc]

It definitely resembles the spotted bass. The lake record is around 5lbs I think. I can’t remember the exact weight but I’ve looked it up. This one was about 4lbs and it was the strangest one I’ve seen until this spring when I caught the spotted bass in the bottom pic. The one in the top has the dark back, small mouth, etc. like a spotted bass normally does but the stripes were a new one on me. Ever since then, I’ve seen more and more with the stripes.

I’ve caught smallmouth, largemouth, and now meanmouth (half smallie half spot), and now this new hybrid of spotted bass.

I didn’t know about the spawning methods between whites and largemouth but that makes since. The whites always go far up the river end to spawn and the blacks stay shallow and the smallmouth stay around the big end of the lake in shallow water. Good info so thanks for sharing!

Here is what I usually catch for spotted bass. Notice…..no stripes? Slender long body? Mouth is slightly larger than a white or smallmouth but not quite big enough to be a largemouth bass because the back of the mouth is not below the eye? That’s why I think these other two are some type of new cross-bred hybrid of sorts. Could be just a variation of the normal or typical spotted bass. When you look up bass identification pictures for the Arkansas Game & Fish, the stripped spotted bass is not an listed.

[Guest]

Looks like a spotted bass to me.

[Hogfan]

J-Doc

The fish in your original post is a kentucky/spotted bass and a pretty good one at that! The fish in your last post looks to be a largemouth.

[Trav]

The stripes are just ridge lines. Alot of bass get them if they spend alot of time on the bottom. You mostly see them in water that has alot of iron. Kind of like a brown bath tub gets from well water with alot of minerals in the water.

I have seen it often up north. Especially some of the smaller fly in lakes in ontario.

Nice spot all the same!

[J-Doc]

The stripes are just ridge lines. Alot of bass get them if they spend alot of time on the bottom. You mostly see them in water that has alot of iron. Kind of like a brown bath tub gets from well water with alot of minerals in the water.

I have seen it often up north. Especially some of the smaller fly in lakes in ontario.

Nice spot all the same!

Thanks! That makes sense.