"Meanmouth" identification/verification please

[hoglaw]

Is there an objective way to tell the difference?  I think I have a lot of meanmouth in my creek.  How many rays should a smallmouth/spot/meanmouth have on the dorsal fin?

[jtram]

Meanmouth IMO

This is one (for sure, i think, maybe)

[Brian Jones]

Here are some pics so that you can compare side by side.  The first is the fish that I caught from the Gasconade yesterday and posted in my original post.  The second is a smallmouth/spot cross that was caught in the Meramec in December of 2012.  The third is a smallmouth caught from the Gasconade in July of 2012.   Though I realize the lighting is different in each pic, you can definitely see a difference in the color and the side markings between a hybrid and a smallmouth. 

[Danimal]

The vertical bars becoming more diamond shaped towards the tail is a pretty good indicator that it's a hybrid. Several streams in my neighborhood (Lee Creek, Mulberry, Frog Bayou) have a few of them. While I never keep smallie's -- I'm sometimes tempted to keep the hybrids for the sake of the gene pool. LOL

[Al Agnew]

Individual hybrids vary greatly in appearance, but when you've caught a bunch of smallmouth and you catch one, if you're observant you'll notice differences.  In the fish in the original post, the things that tipped me off were the olive and gold color, the bright white of the lower parts of the head, and the vague hint of a horizontal dark stripe on the side, where the vertical bars kind of run together.  In Jtram's photo, that fish is very smallie-like, but again is a little more olive and gold, and the scales on the back and upper sides are dark edged with light centers to the point where you can easily see every scale.  Typically smallies have darker edges on those scales but the difference between dark and light areas on each scale isn't as sharp and clear.  In Brian's fish from the Meramec, note that the dark bars simply stop at about the area on the side where a spotted bass would have the dark, broken horizontal stripe--on pure smallies, if the bars show up at all, they will extend all the way down to nearly the belly.  And that fish also has the olive gold coloration and the sharply defined scales on the upper sides.

Note that the mouths of smallies, spots, and hybrids are all similar in size and extend to around the back edge of the eye when the mouth is fully closed, so that's no help.  Neither is fin ray counts, as the range of numbers of rays is similar in all the bass species.  

[LittleRedFisherman]

Catching them on the current river to more frequently near the state line.  Spots and smallies have always been mixed here so guess no surprise.