What do y’all think this bass is?

 

The replies I’ve gotten on a local forum are saying it’s a spot, but I’ve never seen one with this coloration before. Personally I think it’s a shoal bass.
 

It was caught a little north of Atlanta if that helps.

Georgia has a number of bass subspecies. Coming from a stream it could be a number of things possibly a shoal bass?

The jaw goes behind the eye so to me it’s not a smallmouth even though it looks similar. 

Meanmouth bass

 If you were in Georgia, it’s a Shoal bass. 

Georgia has at least 10 species of black bass and many of them are known to hybridize with each other. Do you have better pictures of this fish? That photo is not the best to properly identify a black bass, especially if it is a hybrid. Many hybrid black bass are caught around the Atlanta area. Send that photo to a Georgia state Fisheries Biologist for better identification.

i’m calling it a shoal bass

Shoal bass

It does not look like a pure shoal bass, at least by looking at the picture provided by the OP. It looks like a hybrid black bass which is common around Atlanta. I have caught shoal bass, Chattahoochee bass, Bartram's bass and many other black bass species in Georgia along with other black bass species in other states. 

 

Coming from a river in Georgia, and based on its vertical blotching, I'd also go with shoal bass.

Other than the Flint River, those guys are becoming increasing uncommon.  Kudos!

I never targeted them, but I lived in Georgia for 6 years and never caught one shoal bass.

 

Roger

 

43 minutes ago, RoLo said:

 

Coming from a river in Georgia, and based on its vertical blotching, I'd also go with shoal bass.

Other than the Flint River, those guys are becoming increasing uncommon.  Kudos!

I never targeted them, but I lived in Georgia for 6 years and never caught one shoal bass.

 

Roger

 

To the best of my knowledge, anywhere besides the Flint and way north up the Chattahoochee no longer have true shoal bass.

 

I’ve targeted them before in the flint and they were a very fun fish to catch. Not sure if catching them is always easy, but when I went it was very quick to put together a pattern and catch several in a short period of time.

 

I fish for shoal bass weekly in the summer and it looks, to me, like a shoal bass.

Another one I have heard of and seen pics but never caught.  Nicely done.  That is one cool fish. 

Alabama bass?  Here in Virginia our Department of Wildlife Resources (formerly Dept. of Game & Inland Fisheries) is warning us of this invasive bass.  https://dwr.virginia.gov/wildlife/fish/alabama-bass/?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nftf&utm_content=nftf_fishing_july2020

 

Honestly, I doubt I'll be able to tell these apart sometimes.  Some sort of stripes on the white sides.