Don’t know how I’ve been fishing 23 years and never joined this sub but here we are 🤟🏾
Caught this with a silver,blue and orange Rat L Trap and 6 pound line….but is this big for a shoal bass? The Fish-brain app guys say it is and I’ve only ever caught largies and rock.
Posted by JyMustTellYou
22 Comments
Looks like LMB in muddy water. Where caught? Fresh /brackish water?
[deleted]
Now, honestly, I’ve never caught a shoal bass, but that looks like a small mouth to me. 🤷♂️
Bet ya cant taste the difference.
If you go on fish brain people post catches to random bodies of water. People are posting pike at my local ponds that are full of nothing but bullhead and carp.
What waterway did you catch it out of? Regardless it’s a real nice fish
Looks like a smallmouth
Yes
What’s a shoal bass
Nice Fish
Looks like a Smallie !
Tight Lines
🥵
https://preview.redd.it/tj10j9xs7ome1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=05616824f8e5f4e13f57eb1cdf264ad5a5202453
Never heard of these but given this description it does appear to be a shoal bass
I think you read it wrong. It’s not a shoal mouth it’s a smol mouth 🙂
How to tell if it’s a Shoal bass and not a small mouth? Shoal bass live in Florida, Georgia and a small part of Alabama(protected in AL). Are you in any of those places? Next, smallmouth have a white spot on the operculum(usually), on a Shoal bass that spot is grey to black. Shoal bass have 3 warpaint stripes on the face, smallmouth can sometimes have 4. Shoal bass can have up to 11 anal fin spines whereas smallmouth have up to 10. Do I think it’s a Shoal bass? Maybe? Depends on the location.
The fish whistle was screaming lol
Shoals and Smallmouth can be a bit tricky to identify without a location, but Shoal bass have a VERY small geographic range, primarily in Georgia to the wast of the Fall line (Flint and Chattahoochee rivers are their primary range).
That said, I *believe* this is a shoal bass, and a very large one that that.
That’s the fun of centrarchidae, highly speciated with lots of hybridization.
I know nothing about shoal bass specifically, but I have observed that regional species tend to evolve into a specific niche where they can out compete LMB. I do not know what is big for a shoal bass, but if that were a guadalupe bass it would be fuck huge. Is it’s ecological niche small, shallow, swift running streams? Probably a big specimen if so.
Check if any of those states have waterbody records or if they have a state record for shoal bass. Better yet, set aside 20-30 minutes of your life and call a game warden. IME, they’re biology nerds that love IDing fish. I have one on speed dial after my wife caught a record sand trout, had to get their verification on if I was counting anal rays correctly lol.
You caught a hard to find one. And a fucking tank of a shoal bass at that.
I know Alabama, Georgia, and Florida have special awards for anglers that complete the “black bass slam” in those states. You now know what you have to do – time to fish they are damn Pokémon in whatever state you’re in! Small, large, spot, shoal, and red eye varieties are on the menu in all three states.
In FL, the slam includes Suwanee bass, and they are the coolest looking bass I’ve ever encountered.
Go get ‘em and get that patch for your hat/jacket/bag/whatever.
Tight lines, dude!
Definitely looks like one. Nice catch Brotha!
It’s a nice fish no matter what. How did it fight, wild like a smallie?
Shoal is
A shoal bass that size must have put up one hell of a fight. Nice fish dude!