White Bass Gender

[Tim Smith]

Seen many references made to catching male/female white bass. I know I'm opening a can of worms for the jokers on this forum, lol, but in all seriousness, how do you tell the difference between the two?

On black basses the un-scaled area around the vent is circular on a female and pear shaped on the male (it's a little bigger at the anterior end to make room for the sperm duct there). White basses might be the same.

Archdale, I think a lot of people catch and keep now and then, but where and when and to what species you do that to can be pretty critical. Just remember that dive mask increases the size of everything underwater by 25%. How many big quality fish are actually there? Not that many.

[grizwilson]

That will be easy to remember, the exact oppisite of humanoids.....the males are larger with swollen beer bellies and the females are smaller?

I generally consider the largest fish with the obiviously swollen bellies to be sows. The little guys may be immature females or males, but regardless I strictly fish catch and release on White Bass.

[Tim Smith]

That will be easy to remember....

...unless the males have just eaten a huge meal.

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

I know everything looks a little bigger underwater, as for spearfishing everything still has to be within legal length. So i think i have a pretty good eye by now. Honestly i was very suprised on the number of quality keepers until after I started diving. We mainly dive Bull Shoals so we can spear fish. As for that lake the quality is definitely there, if you ever get a chance to go dive it is worth it just to see how many big bass are lurking everywhere. Kinda makes you sick. Especially around most the fish attractors they put in that lake, they are huge compared to the dinky little ones on TR. Some of them it looks like they sunk a small Forrest

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[vonreed]

It's hard to tell with 100 percent accuracy but the females will have obvious bellies on them this time of year. Males hardly ever get real big and if they are they won't have a big belly like a female of the same size.

[Tim Smith]

It's hard to tell with 100 percent accuracy but the females will have obvious bellies on them this time of year. Males hardly ever get real big and if they are they won't have a big belly like a female of the same size.

Mostly true, but you can be fooled. I've taken tube samples on gut contents of literally thousands of black bass and hundreds of white bass. From the outside you can be sure you've got a fat female full of eggs then once you empty the bellies...oops...it's just a gigantic meal of shad.

To be sure, check the pore.