Dark smallie

[Quillback]

Caught this one yesterday, another smallmouth color variation.  Seems like no two are the same.

 

 

[Nick Adams]

Nice fish! Beautiful

[snagged in outlet 3]

Darkest smallies I’ve ever seen!   Nice!

[Al Agnew]

That same fish could be very light in five minutes.  They have an ability to drastically change from light to dark, including almost all black, as well as change color and fade or make prominent their markings.  Today I hooked a little one that looked entirely black in the water.

I even did a series of scientific illustrations of some of the color phases in smallmouth.  Here is my rendition of a nearly black one, done from a photo I took of one.

[Quillback]

Great work Al!

[Bill Babler]

Beck and I filled our live wells with oxygenated well water and added ice to keep the temps in the high 50’s low 60’s

Our fish would dramatically change color. The K’s became a vibrant turquoise and silver and the SM would turn a soft brown with extremely bold green stripes. LM would get very black on top with silver sides and bright black lines thru the mid section. 

In a snow white livewell with gin clear water full of oxygen the transformation was crazy. 
 

[pjlures]

Went to Canada years ago.  I caught a orange fish. Couldn't figure out what it was till it came out of the water. Smallmouth. In the tea colored water they were orange. 

[Al Agnew]

1 minute ago, pjlures said:

Went to Canada years ago.  I caught a orange fish. Couldn't figure out what it was till it came out of the water. Smallmouth. In the tea colored water they were orange. 

Yup, it's amazing how they can match their surroundings.  Here is another one of my scientific illustrations.  This fish came from upper Big River in the section most heavily affected by lead mine tailings.  It's not as bad as when the photo I used for this one was taken; the tailings sources have been stabilized so that they don't enter the river much anymore.  But 20 or more years ago, there would be stretches where the bottom was covered with the tailings, like coarse sand or fine gravel.  And they were gray in color and usually not much algae grew on them, so there would be pools where the bottom was light gray.  And this is what the smallmouth looked when they were hanging out over those gray-bottomed pools.