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Largemouth Bass
Micropterus
salmoides |
RON PITTARD GRAPHIC
TEXT BY DENNIS BITTON
The largemouth bass is perhaps the most popular
sportfish in all of North America. Why? Well first,
largemouth reside in almost every U.S. state (except the
coldest ones), Canada, and Mexico, and can be found in
just about everyone's backyard. Second, few fish are
more aggressive and strike with the savagery of a
largemouth. And lastly, largemouth fishing is
visual--casting to structure and watching fish slam
large surface offerings.
Early on, largemouth were popular with conventional
anglers mostly. However, the fish are gaining more and
more attention from fly rodders, especially anglers that
love to fish on the surface. Fly fishers use big, heavy
rods (8- to 9-weights) to fight these fish--that often
dive into weeds and structure--and to cast large, meaty
flies that largemouth prefer.
The largemouth (Micropterus salmoides), also known as
the green bass and the black bass, is distinguished by
three characteristics over its close relative, the
smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieui). The
largemouth's mouth is much larger than the smallmouth's
(hence the names) with its upper jaw extending behind
the eye. Second, the hard and soft sections of a
largemouth's dorsal fin are separated, where the
smallmouth's are connected. Lastly, largemouth are
generally burnt green, with an unmistakable black, often
thick, horizontal stripe running along the entire length
of the flanks. The dark stripe is often hard to see on
big fish, but is quite apparent on smaller fish.
Largemouth are further marked by a wide forked tail and
thick, heavy flanks. Smallmouth are more brown/bronze
with vertical flank markings.
Largemouth bass may be the most popular gamefish in
North America. They can be found everywhere from
Illinois farm ponds, to Lake Okeechobee in Florida, and
everywhere in between. They love to eat surface flies,
and the best places to look for them are around weedbeds,
sunken logs, or other obstructions.
The largemouth's original range included southern Canada
through the Great Lakes, south in the Mississippi Valley
to Mexico and Florida, and up the Atlantic Coast through
Maryland. In southern waters, where warmer temperatures
produce more worms, frogs, insects, minnows, crayfish,
etc., largemouth generally grow at a much faster rate.
Many 12-pound Florida largemouth bass are caught each
year-and there are 20 pounders roaming Southern waters.
A trophy-sized Northern largemouth bass might tip the
scales at 8 pounds.
Largemouth, in the North or South, prefer ponds and
lakes to moving water. They especially favor stillwaters
with shallow, weedy sections or rivers with slow
backwaters. Their tolerance to heat is high, and when
they spawn in the spring (water temps 62-65 F.), their
aggressiveness is legendary. It is rare to find
significant concentrations of largemouth bass in deep
water (deeper than 15 to 20 feet) or in water that is
not marked by substantial stands of aquatic vegetation.
The largemouth has given fly tiers lots of room to
experiment, meeting the peculiarities of various
geographic regions and available food sources. One of
the most popular largemouth flies is the deer-hair bass
bug, made by 'spinning' dyed deer hair on special hooks.
Other good patterns include many minnow/streamer
patterns, mouse and crayfish patterns, and popping bugs
in every color imaginable. Only steelhead and Atlantic
salmon fly fishers/tiers can match the resourcefulness
of largemouth bass tiers.
In the past, most largemouth fishing was done from
boats. Today personal floatation devices are popular and
allow anglers to reach more small, remote ponds. Stories
of big largemouth in small ponds abound. Grass beds,
weed-infested waters, or small sunken forests of buried
tree trunks are the key target areas for largemouth.
But, at water level, the paddling fly fisher has an
advantage of a smaller profile enabling him to get
closer to the fish before casting. And, there's always
the thrill of hooking a largemouth big enough to tow you
around the lake. It happens!
Like all fishermen, largemouth fly fishers dream of a
20-pound fish. They know it's possible because of the
few hogs caught in the South. What excites these anglers
is that the "biggest of the big"--the Florida strain of
largemouth bass--has been transplanted to a number of
places where it wasn't naturally present before.
Anticipations are high.
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