Gold Bass In South Africa !

[Wayne Easton]

Greetings all! Thought you would like to see these pics. During an outing at Inanda Dam last year my FIL (father in law) David Brown (aka: Captain Junebug) caught this bass on a 5” Junebug Big Bite Bait Jerk Minnow. I have often heard our piscatorial challengers being referred to as , Green Fish . Largies, Black Bass and even Big Mouth but this one was an eye opener for me…a Golden Bass. At first, as you probably feel right now, I thought he was taking the P155 out of me and had ‘played’ with the pics , but no , it’s as real as it looks. I have seen this albinism in carp species (I spent many hours targeting the UK’s Ghost Carp on fly tackle), but this is the best and only specimen in our Micropterus salmoides genome I have witnessed. Very interesting that despite its colour abnormality the bass has survived to a decent weight of around 1.3kgs. Judging by its normal eye colour I believe it is not a full ‘albino bass’.

Amazing colours in the tail and skull .The rare Golden Bass was safely released. Keep well. God Bless !

Wayne Easton Durban, South Africa

[J Francho]

Wow, really weird color morph on that fish! The eyes look darker than normal as well. Sort of like a piebald bass. Cool!

[Wild Bill [NY]]

Looks like somebody spilled chartruese worm-dye on it.

Har, har, har

[J Francho]

That's just outstanding! Pretty neat that it made it that far. Anyone that has raised fish will know, that weird color morphs often show up when the fish are pretty small - like 1/2 to 1" long. It's not a stretch to think that this happens more often than not. Just think of freshwater angelfish we keep in aquariums. In just 40 years or so, we've come a long way from the original:

Wild type scalare angel:

Gold Pearlscale Angel:

[pickerelpunisher]

Those are some really interesting looking bass.

[Wild Bill [NY]]

• Frog Turds,
  
• 
  
• Was that lad's unusual looking Bass caught in California ?
  

[Michael DiNardo]

Looks like someone dipped it into JJ's.

[Sfritr]

Awesome coloration. I wonder what species mixed to form those colors?

I had a buddy who tried to breed a bull dog with a Shitzu once. He called it a "BullShi_ _" LMAO

[J Francho]

I wonder what species mixed to form those colors?

None, probably just a recessive trait.

[Packard]

Another odd colored California bass.

[NCbassmaster4Life]

cool pic's coloration is not just a trait it's the animals adaptation to their enviornment.

[J Francho]

Another odd colored California bass.

Awesome looking xanthic bass!

[tholmes]

THere is a condition seen sometimes in fish and birds called Xanthochroism which makes the affected animals appear more yellow of orange than they normally would..

Like this Northern Cardinal:

Makes me wonder if that's what's going on with the bass pictured above.

Tom

[Scorcher214]

Another odd colored California bass.

Wow, I didn't know bass could look like that. Last year I was fishing behind a convenience store down the street from me (had a canal in the back of it). My mom stopped by before she went off to do some errands and said she saw a giant goldfish. I thought she saw a carp and just didn't know any better but later on after she left I saw a fish that was about 7-8 inches swimming, and it was ORANGE just like a goldfish. I thought it was a goldfish someone had released. But was really curious as to how it got that big without being eaten. Who knows, could have been the illusive golden bass. I wonder if these more extreme color morphs are more common than we know. Would make sense the gold ones would be eaten earlier on and not make it to bigger sizes. Stick out a lot more and what not.

[Packard]

Wow, I didn't know bass could look like that. Last year I was fishing behind a convenience store down the street from me (had a canal in the back of it). My mom stopped by before she went off to do some errands and said she saw a giant goldfish. I thought she saw a carp and just didn't know any better but later on after she left I saw a fish that was about 7-8 inches swimming, and it was ORANGE just like a goldfish. I thought it was a goldfish someone had released. But was really curious as to how it got that big without being eaten. Who knows, could have been the illusive golden bass. I wonder if these more extreme color morphs are more common than we know. Would make sense the gold ones would be eaten earlier on and not make it to bigger sizes. Stick out a lot more and what not.

Pretty interesting. I didn't catch this bass but the person who did said that they did some research and contacted their dnr and they siad it was some type of pigment mutation. They also said that bass with this genetic mutation don't grow very large because it is harder for them to hunt for food because of that not so stealthy color.

[DRhodes]

Those are some very neat pics. Thanks for sharing.

[fishinkeebs]

wow! thanks for the pics guys