I’ve bin wondering this for a while but do large mouth bass and spotted bass cross breed.    I fish out of 2 small bodies of water not 100 feet from each other anyways I’ve caught both large mouth and spotted bass. Out of one of them and the bass in that certain pond don’t seem to get as big as a normal large mouth should.   So I was wondering if there’s any chance of there being cross breeds in that certain pond. Thanks.

Yep ? though it's not terribly common, and it would be hard to say if, or to what degree it might occur in your waters.

The size structure of the fish in each of your ponds could vary wildly even though they're in close proximity to each other. Lots of things will factor into how large a fish can get in a body of water. 

 

Spots and largemouth do interbreed, but I don't believe they do in every case that the 2 are present in a body of water. 

I think in one of our river systems up here we actually have meanmouths, Largemouth Smallmouth Hybrids. We noticed it when we saw what looked to by a giant smallmouth swimming with a bunch largemouth in a wolfpack. 

Man can cross breed every species of Black Bass and is usually the reason most hybrids in nature occur by transplanting bass outside their natural range.

In nature the various species are separated by natural barriers and have evolved as unique species. Smallmouth and Largemouth normally spawn at different locations and different water temperatures. Spotted bass can spawn with Smallmouth and do when occupying the same waterway as they prefer the spawning areas.

Tom

 

We have "Florida Strain Bass" in the Chickahominy River and now, due to the weigh-ins at Osborne Landing on the Historic James River, we have the large Florida Strain Bass in the James, too.

 

I was told by a guy in the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries that our local bass will spawn with the Florida Strain Bass.

 

That is why the guys who blast off at Osborne Landing or (Follow the Dead Fish to) Hopewell run like crazy to the Chickahominy River and race to the dam. They want those large Florida Strain Bass.

 

It is like the Indy 500 on the water at blast off.

There is a video on this site that has an expert talking about bass and he explained the biggest reason we don't have hybrids is the species spawn under different conditions.