2 pages and no one said johnnybass?

Well you beat me to it........well played sir

Looks like a sand bass banged a spotty

sand bass that has lived on a rocky reef, just like the spotties you pull from the rocks look different from the ones you pull from the grass......sorry I could not think of a smart ass comment...........oh wait I just did.:D

Iceman, let's get back on subject. Your comment about ass was off topic .Regardless of it being smart. Let's stick to bASS

I'm going with a spottie/sand bass hybrid.


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hybrid

So, say it were a hybrid, what would dfg measure it as? Or do all 3 have the same requirements?


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All 14"

Thanks!


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A 14" yellow eyed brown trout would be quite an impressive hybrid.

You are all wrong, and should be ashamed of yourself.


That is clearly a kern river squawfish.

Looks like hybrid (not Toyota )
Sanbass & bay bass
And yes calico taste better

Nope. You guys have it all wrong. It's one of them climate change fishes that the eco nazi's are protectin.

Cheers

That's just a regular old barred sandbass. Never heard of a sandbass/baybass hybrid, but I'd love to see one. Better yet a spottie/calico hybrid. That would be a big mean bass! Proper name for a spottie is a spotted sand bass.

There's also a parrot sandbass found in the Sea of Cortez that has the same body and nearly the same fins of a regular sandie with some pretty funky colors and patterns.

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ps0e21c070.jpg


And also the gold spotted sandbass in the SOC. Real common and delicious meat.

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...h/P7210890.jpg

The only hybrid (saltwater) bass I've heard of is a sandie/calico (Sandico). Fairly common in the SM Bay-LB area. These are good examples..


http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...sxldai5um.jpeg

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ot/sandico.jpg

I caught an interesting looking sandie last Fall off of PV. Sent it to a marine biologist friend and he thinks it's a sandico, but I still think it's just a funky colored reef dwelling sandie since it still has the same body and fin configuration of a sandbass, but you'd probably have to do some dna tests to find out for sure. Either way pretty interesting, especially the blue pelvic and anal fins.


http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...psd925a5b0.png

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ps31ac50b4.jpg

The bass in picture#2 are commonly referred to as "pinto bass" on the SOC

Are the Freshwater bass still legal at 12" or did they go up to 14" also? I haven't checked the freshwater regs since I've been fishing Saltwater the last 3 years.

All three bass are at 14". But I believe freshwater bass are still at 12". Don't quote me on that

Yes all freshwater bass are defined as black bass and a 12" 5 fish limit applies(unless you somehow found some in a stream, river, canal, or a fully private lake/pond, in that case there is no size limit' but still a 5 fish limit)
Freshwater bass just dont have enough room or time in the water to get huge out here in cali, just too many people. Ive never caught a largemouth in big bear, only smallmouth, same with lake arrowhead. I did see a guy who lugged out an 8lb largemouth in silverwood by bouncing a jig from the shore back to his boat right on the side of the main fishing dock by the loading ramp. I had seriously fished that spot from the shore for like an hour without a single bite. I guess casting towards the shore is really what triggers the bite.


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It's a hybrid. It's a either a cross between a calico and a spotted bay bass or a calico and a sand bass.

Sand Bass and Spotted bay bass are actually really closely related, as they are essentially the same fish but one is adapted to shallow inshore waters like bays and the other is adapted for open water.

http://imageshack.com/a/img577/9535/x3wv.jpghttp://imageshack.com/a/img534/3970/rp4z.jpg
Look at the dorsal fin, gill plate and eyes and you can see that even though the color pattern is not the same structurally those fish are almost identical. Also there a few spots on the face not as Many as with the spotty but they are there on young sandbass.

Sand bass will come into bays, but they still go out into open water and school up into large groups to spawn. Spotted bay bass stay in bays year round and no longer school up or spawn in open water. They still interbreed but it's rare because they now have different spawning behavior.

Color wise they have a lot of variation but generally spotties are much darker and heavily spotted where sandbass have few spots as adults even when they show darker markings.

http://imageshack.com/a/img716/8596/rbo6.jpg



Calicos or Kelp bass are a completely different fish.http://imageshack.com/a/img20/116/q5o7.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img829/3726/rhej.jpg

Notice there's a difference in the fins and the shape of the head. The point of the gill plate is lower, and generally with kelp bass the color pattern is the same (same check spots in the same places) even if there is a big difference in their age or size.

Calicos can vary in color and are often darker when found in rocks or kelp.http://imageshack.com/a/img40/426/i317.jpg
but the basic markings of a purebred calico are almost always that same check pattern.

Like I said your fish is probably a hybrid as Kelp bass can interbreed with both Sand bass and spotted bay bass. Most likely just from the color pattern facial spots I'd say it's a cross between a Calico and a spotted bay bass, but the deal with hybrids is recessive genes can pop up and it could easily be a Calico sandbass hybrid.

Here's your fish again:
http://www.bigwatersedge.com/bwevb/a...8&d=1393811055

It would be easier if you could see the fins but from what's there: The spots on the face suggest it's part spotty or Sand bass and the three very distinct light colored blotches on the tail are roughly in the same place they would be on a Kelp or Calico bass. Sandbass have light bands but the are not as defined and do not go as far back towards the tail. The gill point has features of both fish. It's sharper like a sandbass or spotty but it's lower like with a Calico

Calicos do not have facial spots, sandbass and spotties do not have checks. I'd say the spots and checks together suggest that the fish is a hybrid.

Thanks fiskadoro! That was really informative. So it seems like the cross breeds are a pretty common thing, it's weird I've never come across a thread talking about it?

Great pics. I think that first one might be a Calico spotted hybrid, that second one has to be about the best looking sandbass Calico hybrid I've seen. I've seen a lot of them but never one that bright.

You can tell we fish the same areas.

I caught a fish just like the third one off big Kelp Reef. It had almost the exact same coloration as a dark brown Cabazon. Cool stuff!!! Thanks for those pics.

Nice explanation and pictures Fisk, your post should be stickied

Cool! Glad you liked the post. Hopefully next time you get one you'll know what it is.:D

Most people just are not aware of hybrids, and they are more common in some areas the others. Tattuna and I both fish the SMB and they are fairly common catch in the bay. I don't keep Calicos but I will occasionally keep Sand bass for my friends. With me every once in a while I'd get a bass that looked kind of weird and I'd go: Hhhhmmmmm WTF!?!?!?!

Then one day my buddy Larry pulled one up and said: "Hey: Look a hybrid!
After that it all made sense.:D

I'm interested in hearing why you don't keep Calicos but do occasionally keep Sand Bass.

Back when I was primarily doing freshwater bass fishing during spawn casting to the shore and coming back to the boat was best, but I had pretty good results doing like you were talking about. Basically I've has the best Freshwater results with keeping the bait closer to or right in contact with the bottom as it comes back to shore or the boat.

Funny story. Years ago I was fishing a Redondo Baytuber tournament and the bass were just wide open on Hermosa reef. I called in my buddy Robert Young who was on a skiff that was drifting halibut nearby. He kept fishing Halibut just off the reef and we shot the shit while I was catching fish after fish. Usually I don't keep bass at all but it was a tournament and Redondo tourniments were ususlly kind of slow so a loaded up a limit of some pretty big sandies. After a while I hook up something really big and up comes a beautiful 10 pound Calico. Robert gives me this look. Takes out his camera, takes a pic and then says:"So what you going to do?" At that point I released it. I'm not saying that Robert would of kicked my ass but he'd of certainly given me a ton of shit if I kept that fish because those kinds of Calicos, big fish of that size, are pretty slim and far between in Santa Monica Bay, and at that point I already had a stringer of big sandbass anyway.

In SMB the Calico population has historically really been nailed by sportboats. We do not have that much rock or kelp so the areas that hold them are limited and get pounded. I contrast we have a lot of open water and usually get several migrations of large schools of Sandbass a year, so there are always a lot of sandbass around. I used to fish with a guy that loved hammering Calicos back in the 1990s, and we used to just nail them, but the fish got scarce and I just decided not to fish them any more. Most of the hardcore anglers I know up here do not keep Calicos and they almost all release the larger ones, it's just kind of a unwritten rule.

I don't usually target bass. The majority of Sandbass I get are bycatch when fishing halibut. I've got neighbors who love them so when I get one that's hooked bad I'll keep it, or when they are really thick I'll take a few for them, but that's about it.