what Kind of bass ? 2024
Jepu reply :
I recently found an old canal near my house that I decided to fish on foot. My first try at produced almost a dozen pickeral in an hour. No Bass. Today I decided to give it another crack. I started catching pickeral again until I switched to a chartreuse buzzbait and caught 3 Bass in 10 minutes, not huge but all about 2 lbs. The kicker is that they were clearly largemouth bass, but all three had mouths the size of a smallmouth. I have been bass fishing since I was 8, and I have never seen a bass with these traits. Has anyone out there ever seen anything like this.
abelfisher reply :
They may have been 'Spotted bass". I too had this same experience and found out they were spotted bass. Looks like LM but had smaller mouth and their lower sides and belly had spots...
roadwarrior reply :
Spotted bass a.k.a. Spots a.k.a. Kentucky bass (micropterus punctulatus). There are several technical differences, but the easiest to note are reddish eyes and a "spot" or lump on the tongue (actually a rectangular tooth patch). Although they look like a largemouth (color and vertical striping), they are most closely related to smallmouth bass.
Shad_Master reply :
I have also heard of "mean mouth" which, I believe is a cross between a small mouth and spot. Is this right? Do any of you guys have any experience with these critters?
roadwarrior reply :
Yes, I have caught a few. They are black, or at least that's all I have caught. They fight like a smallmouth, but they don't get very big. I think the world record is 4 or 5 lbs, I've never caught one over 2 lbs.
Hookhead reply :
I've also heard of "Warmouth" bass. Suppose that is the same as mean mouth?
Once while striper fishing I caught what I think was a rock bass. It had a bass body in shape but was very light colored, no horizonatal line or spots. It had pronounced red eyes. Kind of freaky.
nwgabassmaster reply :
No, a "meanmouth" is a cross between a largemouth and a smallmouth. Look at the insert on Page 50 of the February 2005 BASSMASTER's Magazine.
And war-mouths are nothing more than a species of small sunfish, that hang around rocks in the shallows. My father and I catch these for catfish and for stripers.
10-1, what you caught was a spotted bass, or another sub-species called the Coosa Bass. These bass are very distinct in their characteristics. In either case, a spotted bass would have tore up your thumb! The lip patch toothing that those critters have hurt! ;D
roadwarrior reply :
A meanmouth is a hybrid spotted bass/ smallmouth, not largemouth/ smallmouth. The Missouri State Record was caught at Table Rock during a tournament 10/05/03, 4.76 lbs. The fish was subsequently taken to BPS in Springfield for display.
nwgabassmaster reply :
Ok, this is quoting an insert in the February 2005 BASSMASTER Magazine, where it talks about creating a superbass.
"However, Childers would not give up in his attempt to produce the super-bass. Later, he and a fellow researcher were able to successfully produce a MALE SMALLMOUTH and a FEMALE LARGEMOUTH cross, resulting in a very agressive fish they called the MEANMOUTH."
I read all the articles, and side-notes in BASSMASTER, and I have yet to see a retraction in the information provided there.
roadwarrior reply :
Well, use your seach engine and bring up "meanmouth". There are several entries, one of which is about the MO State Record I mentioned. I think Bassmaster is wrong on this one.
nwgabassmaster reply :
http://www.aquanic.org/discuss1/_lmbass/000000c6.htm
No, I think that you are wrong in this one. 
nwgabassmaster reply :
I hope that this works, if it does, I will edit my message. 
Hotdog.............ok. That's a Meanmouth that was caught in the TN River System. I see no resemblance of a spotted bass in it. To me, it looks like a smallmouth's head with a largemouth's body. 
Raul reply :
Meanmouths are a hybrid of 50% smallmouth and 50% largemouth, it really doesn 't matter if the father is a smallmouth and the mother a largemouth or viceversa, it 's the percentage what counts. Those hybrids do occur naturally ( not that often ) where two closely related species inhabit the same waters and the offspring carry with them physical and physiological characteristics of both parents, as you can see in Nwgabassmaster 's pic, the fish doesn 't look like a largemouth, it doesn 't have well defined lateral line markings, doesn 't look like a smallmouth either, it doesn 't have well defined vertical lines, if you look closely at the color pattern it 's not brown nor green, it 's somwhere in between, there are no distinctive markings. Opposed to other hybrids meanmouths are fertile, they can either cross with LMB or SMB.
The idea of creating a hybrid in theory was to give the hybrids something pure species lack of: adaptability to environments different than those where the pure species originated, with added features, for example: a cross between a florida strain LMB with a smallmouth would produce ( in theory ) a fish capabable of growing bigger than the smallmouth, with all the strength of it and it 's ability to live in very cold water ( something that Florida strain LMB can 't do ), but things aren 't always that simple, many times hybrids don 't adapt well and if they do when you place them where both species live or where one is predominant they breed to them reducing the Hybridization Percentage, after a couple of generations the genetic traits you wanted in the hybrid dissapear.
Some hybrids I 've seen are:
LMB X SMB
Northern pike X Muskie
Wallaye X sauger
Stripped X white ( sand ): this one is probably the most succesful of them all, besides, it 's blessing for fisheries biologist because it 's a sterile hybrid.
Now on the subject of how to differentiate a LMB between a Spotted, well the tooth patch on the tongue is not the way to do it, around 30% of LMBs have that patch, color markings are also not the way to differentiate them, those depend a lot on water clarity and color. What differentiates them is the mouth, the general appearance and the depth they prefer.
Draw an imaginary line perpendicular to the eye, if the jaw joint crosses that line and extends to the back then it 's a LMB, if the jaw joint is on that line and the fish has a large tooth patch on the tongue then you are 90% shure it 's a spotted.
Spotted are shorter and beeefier than LMBs, add that to the jaw joint and the tooth patch and you 're 95% shure it 's a spotted.
If you pulled that fish from the depths plus the above then you can bet it 's a spotted.
roadwarrior reply :
Well then, there you have it. Thanks Raul, I stand corrected.
Kudos to nwgabassmaster, good job researching the topic. There seems to be a lot of people that had it all wrong.
nwgabassmaster reply :
Raul, thanks for the confirmation, and thanks to RoadWarrior for the debate. Great things happen to the folks on this site, and it's good that we can all remain friends.
Raul, what would you call a mix between a spot and a smallie? Has this ever been done? ???
Raul reply :
I don 't have the slightest idea how a spot/lmb or spot/smb hybrid is called Nwgabassmaster.
Has it been done ? I 'm pretty shure it has been tried Nwgabassmaster, both species belong to the same genera ( Micropterus ), they are supposed to be closely related but as I said, therotically it can be done, but one thing is theory and another one is the practice, hybrydizing is not just crossing two species, there 's a lot of fine print at the end of the contract, most probably the reason why we don 't know about spot/lmb or spot/SMB hybrids is because the cross doesn 't work well, eggs don 't hatch, embrios don 't develop, fry die or are deformed and don 't survive or because the hybrids don 't perform as theoritically they should, I 'm pretty shure that 's the reason.
Nature has it 's ways to deter hybridization, let 's take an example, why spotted bass aren 't as widespread as their cousins the LMB and the SMB ? because they evolved in a very particular environment and we are talking about the third most important bass species, not to mention other species like Suwanee bass or Guadalupe bass, those can only be found in even smaller geographical areas, to add more, if it weren 't by the Texas fiheries department Guadalupe bass by now would most probably be extinct, they are the ones that are keeping the species alive, after all it 's their "national" fish ( I say "national" because Texas is Texas, it 's part of the US but not quite you know, they even have their own language, Texan ask any Texan and they are Texan first, American later ).
nwgabassmaster reply :
Alrighty then. Yes, I have family who are Texans. My aunt hated it, but, her daughters are Texan fisrt, Americans second. So, I know what you mean.
Thanks again! 
Grey Wolf reply :
You guys are amazing on your knowledge of the differant bass species. I'M SO GLAD I JOINED THIS FORUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nick reply :
I've always heard that a meanmouth was a spot and smallie hybrid. I don't believe the largemouth is in the mix. The meanmouths we catch behave and look like smallmouth and Kentucky bass, not largemouth. Check with the Missourians and their articles for real "Show-Me" answers. I'm with the Road Warrior on this one.
About 20 years ago, I caught and had one mounted that I thought was a bulky smallmouth from a river here Missouri. The taxidermist colored it like a smallmouth, but I think I had the meanmouth record for quite a while and didn't even know it.
nwgabassmaster reply :
Well, I believe BASSMASTER and I believe Raul. I also believe the research the Mr. Childers did, and I believe that it is a largemouth/smallmouth combo.
As I stated, from the picture, where does the spotted bass show??
It has the head of a smallmouth and the body of a largemouth. Of course, that could be just the sampe from that one picture, and there may be variations of the patterns that are found.
I still believe that it is a largemouth and smallmouth mix, and until there is scientific research to prove differenlty, that will be my belief.
Bassjunky reply :
Read this.
www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/InNews/meanmouth2004.html
nwgabassmaster reply :
I do not believe everything that is on the web. As I have stated, I believe Raul and I believe BASSMASTER.
Also, I would be more compelled if they had mentioned anything about William F. Childers.
Raul reply :
Nick you said: I've always heard that a meanmouth was a spot and smallie hybrid; now , you heard it from who ?, from someone who told you ? who heard it from someone who also heard it ? or from a reputable scientific source ? I 'm I calling you a liar ?, certainly not. Let me tell you what I know, and you can trust me on this one because I don 't lie, nor do I need to lie to anybody beacuse that 's not my style, what I know comes from scientific reports that I read while I was working at Secretaría de Pesca ( Mexico 's equivalent to the FWD ) in all of those reports the cross between a LMB and a SMB is called "meanmouth", the fact that there are no reports on hybridization between M.dolomieu ( SMB ) and M.punctalatus points to what I explained before, it 's not as easy as it seems to cross two species. There are 8 species in the genera Micropterus that means that theoritically you could have 56 crosses and the only successful crossing that I know with the name Meanmouth is M.salmoides X M.dolomieu.
Here 's an extract from a report from Purdue University Bassjunky:
Yes the meanmouth is a cross between a largemouth and a smallmouth. Folks in the midwest are incorrect when they call smallmouth/spotted hybrids meanmouth.
nwgabassmaster reply :
Secretaria de Pesca. Muy bueno, senor!
Do you get to fish El Salto?
Raul reply :
You are not going to believe it.........never been to "El Salto" 
, well don 't need to, BIGUNS are not uncommon in my neck of the woods.
nwgabassmaster reply :
What part of Mexico are you located in? I had friends that came from Guadeloupe. I believe that's how Miguel spelled the name of the village. It wasn't very big, was very poor, etc.
Raul reply :
In Central Mexico, 600 miles SW from Laredo, Texas. 2 hour flight from Dallas/FW or Houston. The city is called León de los Aldamas.
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&searchtype=address&country=MX&addtohistory=&city=Leon+de+los+Aldamas
abelfisher reply :
OK.................So did we decide the answer to the original question was" Spotted Bass" ??? ???
or was it Micropertitusterhsysrtndsughs, ;D ;D
nwgabassmaster reply :
Yeah, I believe that we thought that the fish that was being caught, that resembled largemouths was the spotted bass.
;D
Jepu reply :
We dont normally hear of to many spots up here. I am from upstate NY around the Southern Finger lakes area.
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