Caught by Mason Egloff
Recently this piece in the Statesman.com had the following picture of what they termed a “mutt” fish, what is surmised to be a hybrid cross of some sort. Best guess from a couple TPWD biologists is that it is most likely a mix between a smallmouth bass and a Guadalupe bass, the most prevalent two basses in the Blanco River where the fish was caught. They’re still not certain of the reason for the predominant yellow markings on the fish though.
It got me looking for examples of a few other color morphs to show readers.
There have been a few examples of “golden” bass caught over the years that I was able to track down. Most odd coloration in fish is due to genetic variation. The two most common forms are ‘albinism’, a lack of most all pigmentation that results in white or pink colored fish with red eyes, and ‘xanthochromism’, which is an unusual amount of yellow pigment in the skin color. Here are some more examples:
This smallmouth from River Rat Dog Guide Service
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This yellow and black blotched largemouth from javicruzito
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This "gold" Florida strain largemouth from Camp Mack's River Resort in Florida
5bites
May 16, 2011 at 9:55 am
That orange smallmouth is beautiful.
admin (mostly Jay)
May 16, 2011 at 11:44 am
Holy cow that yellow and black one is bizarre!
Bass Pundit
May 16, 2011 at 12:30 pm
I wonder what would happen if you tried to weigh the yellow and black one in a tournament.
Ron FInk
August 19, 2011 at 8:46 pm
I caught a Gold Largemouth Bass. Totally gold. Looking for some help with it. I have it in a small pond
Brian
August 24, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Ron,
Best bet is to contact your local DNR fisheries biologist first and see what they have to say. They might be interested in checking it out. If not, they can certainly point you in a direction as to who might be interested (local university, etc.). True golden bass seem to be pretty rare.