Identification

[Al Agnew]

True story...I was floating Big River, ten years ago--maybe more, from St. Francois Park to Blackwell, when I came upon an MDC shocking boat about a mile downriver from the Highway 67 bridges. The biologist that has handled Big River for quite a while now, and who I have a lot of respect for, Mike Reed, was not in the boat. I stopped to talk and the one guy introduced himself as a fisheries biologist. He was fairly young, so maybe not long out of college.

The first thing I asked him was how many spotted bass they'd been seeing, since at this time the spots were in the process of really gaining in numbers in this stretch. He said that so far they hadn't seen a spotted bass. Even as he said that, they were tallying up the last few fish of their last shocking session, dipping them out of the live tank and measuring them. The other guy was dipping fish and measuring them, the biologist was writing it down. The other guy dipped up a 10 inch spotted bass and put it on the measuring board.

"Largemouth, 10 inches."

"Wait a minute," I said. "That's a spotted bass."

The biologist looked at it, and actually said, "Really? Hey, check to see if there is a tooth patch on its tongue."

The other guy did, and of course the tooth patch was there.

Of course, about 10% of the largemouth bass in MO have tooth patches, too. It's the least reliable way of telling spots from largemouth.

The point of this story is that not all biologists are well versed in looking at real, live fish and telling at a glance what species they are. I'd venture to say that in the many years I've fished these streams for bass, I've handled more bass from them than most biologists will. And I think I'm pretty observant, as well as knowledgeable.

If the one biologist said his first impression on that fish was that it was a spotted bass, he hasn't seen many spotted bass. Yes, Mitch and Siusaluki and others as well as myself immediately said "hybrid" because we KNEW, with near 100% certainty, that it wasn't a pure smallmouth. But none of us immediately said "spotted bass" because we also KNEW, with near 100% certainty, that it wasn't a spotted bass, either. In fact, I'd love to genetically test that fish, because I'd be willing to bet large amounts of money that test would show it to be a hybrid, not a spot and not a smallmouth.

By the way...in streams where hybidization occurs regularly in the northeastern Ozarks, the few genetic tests that have been done have shown a lot of apparently pure smallies have a few spotted bass genes. I haven't heard the opposite, but I'd suspect that at least some apparently pure spotted bass might have a little smallmouth in them, too.

As for Siusaluki's fish...hybrid, hybrid, spot, spot, hybrid, spot, hybrid, smallmouth, smallmouth.

[Mitch f]

Where is the rest of it Mitch?

He said "Nice Fish whether it was a spot or a hybrid"

But his first statement is that his opinion was spot and no one else ever thought that

[Guest]

Y

 

[Chief Grey Bear]

Point taken everyone. Call it whatever you want....Smallie, spot, meanmouth, goliath grouper.

Here is a link to the text from Cooke and Phillipp 2009

http://www.dmmserver.com/DialABook/978/140/513/9781405133425.html

The other articles require membership, which I don't have on my home computer. I can email full text if you would like from my work computer next week.

I would like that. I would love to read some of the critera.

True story...I was floating Big River, ten years ago--maybe more, from St. Francois Park to Blackwell, when I came upon an MDC shocking boat about a mile downriver from the Highway 67 bridges. The biologist that has handled Big River for quite a while now, and who I have a lot of respect for, Mike Reed, was not in the boat. I stopped to talk and the one guy introduced himself as a fisheries biologist. He was fairly young, so maybe not long out of college.

They let just you come along side the boat?

He said "Nice Fish whether it was a spot or a hybrid"

But his first statement is that his opinion was spot and no one else ever thought that

So my first impression.... now means my opinion?

I'll have to remember that when I first look at something.

BTW did I tell you there was no tooth patch?

[Mitch f]

I would like that. I would love to read some of the critera.

They let just you come along side the boat?

So my first impression.... now means my opinion?

I'll have to remember that when I first look at something.

BTW did I tell you there was no tooth patch?

Now I feel so sorry I ever posted on this thread!

[Chief Grey Bear]

I would like that. I would love to read some of the critera.

They let just you come along side the boat?

So my first impression.... now means my opinion?

I'll have to remember that when I first look at something.

BTW did I tell you there was no tooth patch?

Point taken everyone. Call it whatever you want....Smallie, spot, meanmouth, goliath grouper.

Here is a link to the text from Cooke and Phillipp 2009

http://www.dmmserver.com/DialABook/978/140/513/9781405133425.html

The other articles require membership, which I don't have on my home computer. I can email full text if you would like from my work computer next week.

It must have not all come over. It didn't see where is spoke of the Micropterus dolomieu velox.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Now I feel so sorry I ever posted on this thread!

Ehhh.

Ok, I take back the tooth patch bit.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Never mind Andy, I saw it.

[Old plug]

CHIEF------There are some. Send a note to MDC I bet they gat a DNA profile for everything in the state. Finding out would be an expensive proposition even for them. I do know that there are DNA profiles on just about everything including plants.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Here's what was stated

"My first impression is it looks like a spotted bass to me... broadly attached dorsal, smaller mouth, ordered rows of spots below the midline, coloration --"

I have to back up here just a bit. I got to thinking about this last night but I didn't have the original response to reference because I had deleted it. So I went back to the text I had sent you.

You are correct. It does appear that he does indeed identify the fish as a possible Spot in the initial contact. In other contact not so much so.

In this contact he does state ....impression is..... and that makes you correct. I had it in my mind that he had said......impression was.....because of other contact we had had and he wasn't adamant that it was a spot.

My mistake.