Couple of weird looking smallies!  @FryDog62- that’s a pretty crazy proportioned and colored fish... double whammy on that one.  

 

Ive never caught any bass resembling orange, blue or white around here ?‍♂️.   That said I have always found it pretty cool how you can catch both largemouth and smallmouth that have vastly different coloration or pigmentation, and when you take fired up smallies out of the livewell with those tiger stripes they look pretty awesome.

 

I used to be into tropical fish keeping as a hobby and kept a bunch of South American cichlid fish commonly called a “Discus” fish, I kept wild ones that were harvested in the Amazon river basins, when they were stressed out they would get very similar vertical bars to smallmouth.  Smallmouth are related to South American cichlids if I’m remembering right, so that would make sense.

Been fishing for a lot of years and never seen a smallmouth look that orange....but I did catch a radioactive green bowfin during the spawn this past spring . Bizarre looking !

5 hours ago, Janderson45 said:

Couple of weird looking smallies!  @FryDog62- that’s a pretty crazy proportioned and colored fish... double whammy on that one.  

 

Ive never caught any bass resembling orange, blue or white around here ?‍♂️.   That said I have always found it pretty cool how you can catch both largemouth and smallmouth that have vastly different coloration or pigmentation, and when you take fired up smallies out of the livewell with those tiger stripes they look pretty awesome.

 

I used to be into tropical fish keeping as a hobby and kept a bunch of South American cichlid fish commonly called a “Discus” fish, I kept wild ones that were harvested in the Amazon river basins, when they were stressed out they would get very similar vertical bars to smallmouth.  Smallmouth are related to South American cichlids if I’m remembering right, so that would make sense.

That would be incorrect. Cichlids are their own species. Smallmouth are in the sunfish family. 

 

Totally getting off track here but I have often wondered if hundreds of thousands of years ago, maybe millions, if the grouper family and sunfish bass family spilt from the same family tree. You look at a Goliath grouper and it just looks like a huge Largemouth with smallmouth coloration. Now there...would be a cool cross...can’t you just imagine a 100lb Smallie/Goliath cross hitting a giant spook ?

9 hours ago, Janderson45 said:

 Smallmouth are related to South American cichlids if I’m remembering right, so that would make sense.

Smallmouth bass are a species of black bass and all black bass are in the sunfish family. An example of a fish in the cichlid family is the butterfly peacock bass.

3 hours ago, HeddonFrog said:

Totally getting off track here but I have often wondered if hundreds of thousands of years ago, maybe millions, if the grouper family and sunfish bass family spilt from the same family tree. You look at a Goliath grouper and it just looks like a huge Largemouth with smallmouth coloration. Now there...would be a cool cross...can’t you just imagine a 100lb Smallie/Goliath cross hitting a giant spook ?

The top and bottom fish are Goliath grouper and the middle fish is a black grouper. Have caught both species of fish and both are very fun to catch.

Yup, seems as if I was misinformed, just goes to show you can’t take everything you read on the internet as truth.  I remember specifically reading that smallmouth are closely related to cichlids and largemouth are closely related to grouper which accounts for their difference in anatomy and behavior- I can see why someone would think that but doesn’t appear to be the case.  Thanks for setting me straight!

On 10/25/2018 at 11:23 AM, J Francho said:

Leucistic, actually.  Not albino.  Check some of the pics on wiki.  Pretty wild:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucism

Haven't caught any white fish yet, but I did see a leucistic cardinal on the lake a week ago.  Bright white feathers.   No pics....I was fishing....lol

On 8/30/2018 at 8:54 AM, J Francho said:

It's pumpkin spice flavored smallie!

It is THAT time of year, after all.

I caught a smallmouth just like it. Mine looked different because it's mouth was also big for it's body. 

Beautiful bass, @FryDog62. Huge tail, deep body, and gorgeous color.

On 3/30/2024 at 8:38 AM, itllkeal said:

I caught a smallmouth just like it. Mine looked different because it's mouth was also big for it's body. 

 

Interesting -- where did you catch it?  In Michigan, we had two more orange smallies reported in 2022. Here is one:

https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/orange-smallmouth-bass-caught-michigan/

 

And a largemouth last year:

https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/golden-bass-michigan-lake/

I’m hoping the big orange take down Purdue in Detroit Michigan later today……

Doh! 

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

Doh! 

 

My condolences.