OK, I hope this pic comes out -- it was taken on my camera phone so it's not great quality....  But look at the color of the eyes!  They're REALLY light yellow.  You probably can't tell from the pic, but it was so noticable I could tell something was strange even before I lifted him all the way out of the water.  I've never seen a fish with eyes like that.  How bout you?  Is this a common thing?  

(OK, I know he's a dink.  Only about 8".  But that's not the point... ;D)

Here's another pic I just downloaded from my phone.  This one shows it even better.  I adjusted the contrast, but I didn't do anything to the color...

I've never seen eyes like that before.

What rig are you using?

That's a zoom trick worm on a chompers stand up jig head.  I've been experimenting with the shaky head here lately.  

Dunno about his eyes.

Why is that huge snap-lok on there?  Tie directly to the jig head.  Those snap locks are made for leaders .  It's just alot of bulky terminal tackle that will interfere with the action of the jig head and also pick up weed.  Just not neccessary.

Dunno about his eyes.

Why is that huge snap-lok on there?  Tie directly to the jig head.  Those snap locks are made for leaders .  It's just alot of bulky terminal tackle that will interfere with the action of the jig head and also pick up weed.  Just not neccessary.

I know, I know.  I'm lazy.  The thing is, I'm really slow at tying knots.  When I don't use the snap, I tend to stay with the same lure way too long, even when it's not working.  I just start thinking (generally a bad idea   ) that I'll make one more cast before I change.  And then I think, well maybe one more cast....and then one more....and then....

Of course, the flip side is that with the snaps, I think I'm changing lures too often (see my other thread on identifying a pattern).  

And I also know that the only way I'm going to get better at tying the knots is to...well...tie knots.  So you're right, I should ditch the snaps.  

C'mon...has ANYBODY seen eyes like this?  Or did I catch some sort of mutant or something?  

I was digging through some of my photos and I could swear I caught one like that last year.  I remember taking a pic of it because I thought it was odd.  Kind of with an oval mean looking eye.

I can't say about the bass, but I think your eyes are adorable

C'mon...has ANYBODY seen eyes like this? Or did I catch some sort of mutant or something?

Well FB, possibly sort of! The color of the eyes in fish (and all animals including humans) is determined genetically. Unlike us though, the color of the eyes of bass seem to be determined by a very dominant allele. It is possible that there are occasions where the inferior alleles may have the possibility to express as well. This may well be the result of certain environmental factors in a particular body of water (especially an isolated one), and, according to the process of natural selection, the inferior alleles may end up giving an advantage to the specimens carrying it in that particular environment. As a result, the strangely-tinted eyes end up in a considerable percentage (or even all!) of the specific population.

We do have a similar example over here in Cyprus. On a particular highland reservoir, a significant part (possibly more than 30%) of the population has eyes very similar in color to the ones shown in your photos. Yet, during more than 5 years of fishing almost totally for bass, I have only once encountered such eyes in bass from the remaining 15 or so reservoirs of the island that have bass. I did try to locate a photo or two that I believe I have from bass from the orange-eyed bass reservoir, but I can't find them (the reservoir has been closed to fishing for some years now due to other non-relevant issues and thus I don't have recent digital photos from those bass - the cypriot members of the forum know which reservoir I am referring to!).

I'm sorry for using the evolutionary biology terms for explaining what I believe happens with bass eyes' color, but I can't really think of easier terms! I have to tell you that although I have a biology degree, I never thought of checking the genetics of bass eyes, so I am just expanding on the information I have for the genetics of eyes in general!