T
TOJIACK FLOATMAN
The large smallie I caught was in 1969 on the Yuba River at Marysville California on a Storm Thin Fin shad lure with a bright purple back. The fish was unique in that it was a beautiful emerald color with no hint of any spots or vertical tiger stripe found on the majority of smallmouth bass species and had those scarlet orange eyes. Years later appx. 5 miles upsteram on the same river at Hallwood I caught another unique smallie that again had no spots or stripes and was an ultra light bronze lemon yellow color with very dim orange eyes that went just over 4 lbs per an old Zebco Deliar hand scale. This one fell victim to a softshell crawdaddy I had just harvested in the rivers shallows. The fish ID came from a years old book at the local library that showed this fish as an exact match calling it a redeyed or kentucky smallmouth. Green Bass was a local handle given to this fish as per the old gent who ran our local bait and tackle shop. Having googled up hundreds of smallie photos and websites on the smallie species since having posted my original reply my interest has peaked a lot as to the limited but not undocumented differences between smallmouth bass by way of photos taken. For an extreme point in case google op California record smallmouth bass and click onto the one showing fish pics. When you get the pics look at the 3rd photo showin Howard Hardins' record smallie from the Mokelumne River . Remember my fish was caught some 44 years ago and the ID resources were limited. Remember too it hasnt been all that long since spotted bass and white bass ( wipers ) showed on the fishin scene as a species. Who knows ? Mother nature has a sense of humor at times. Call the bass I described whatever feels right to you. All I know was it was a great gift for me and one helluva bass !
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