Fishing Adventure in Tennessee: Smallmouth Galore and a Mystery Bass

Nice catch

@Carson thanks, man!

What is your favorite bait to use

Would love to be able to fish a river sometime!

@Chuck they got a few of them in Texas! Haha. Come on up to Tennessee or Kentucky some time and I'll get you on some good river fishing.

@Carson depends on what I'm fishing and where. You can never go wrong with a Texas or a Carolina rig though with some kind of stick bait. Yesterday I was mostly running a Texas rigged Zoom U tail in motor oil/chartreuse.

Yes I run that most the times

May need to swap a tank fishing/Turkey hunt on my place for river fishing trip. Now that we got the last one shipped to college and we don’t have junior rodeos or high school rodeos anymore it will free up some vacation time for me.

@Chuck hell yeah! You just say when. We'll make it happen. I'd love to get on some birds down there. You mostly have Rios I assume?

@Derek yes that’s what we got. We aren’t real Turkey hunters so we need some lessons but we got lots of Turkey.

@Chuck I wouldn't say I'm a real turkey hunter either, but I'm sure we could give them a good run for their money!

Can't wait to do a float through that country one of these days! Got to be some monsters!

Never heard of a red eye bass before let alone seen one. I wonder if it could be a hybrid of a smallie and largemouth? 🤔
Of course I don't think I've heard of that either, so 🤔🤷‍♂️.
Really nice catch though, congratulations. 👍👊

@Appalachian that's going to be an awesome trip when we get it planned.

@David I was honestly thinking it was a smallmouth hybrid with something when I first caught it. I'm still not 100% sure what it was.

@Derek we'll call it a Cool Bass.😎

@David absolutely!

Dude, I don't know what that is and I'm pretty familiar with bass. I'd say maybe some sort of smallmouth largemouth hybrid? Were you north of I-40?

@Adam I was thinking possibly a smallmouth/rock bass or spotted bass hybrid. Yes, I was north of 40.

@Derek yeah that's weird. Definitely a hybrid of some kind, Rock Bass Largemouth seems plausible

@Adam look up red eye bass, the population is isolated to almost only this region of the state and north AL and GA. When a large mouth and smallmouth cross on the rare occasion it produces a MeanMouth which looks more like a spotted than anything. There are 4 different subspecies of redeye bass that are actively pursued as a slam in north AL by fly fishermen. The biggest giveaway to me is the lateral lines on the belly similar to the Rock bass and the blue tinge on the gill plate , with the white rim on the fins. I grew up fishing these waters and can remember my grandpa lecturing me on them as a child. That and his musky stories 😁 definitely can't say for sure though, if smallmouth and large mouth where gonna cross it'd be in s shallow stream with pond runoff like that

@Appalachian I'm definitely still leaning towards it being a redeye. I've been doing quite a bit of reading on them ever since that day. I've seen some pictures of them where that blue tinge gets a lot darker and more prominent. Catching one like that would be awesome!

@Appalachian I was under the impression most of those were in southeast TN, that's why I assumed if it were north of 40 that wasn't what it was. My dad and grandad always called Rock Bass red eyes so they didn't know. I bet you're right.

@Appalachian yeah, googled it, think you're correct

@Derek creek fish seem to color up the most in late spring. Im sure it has something to do with the spawn. I've caught musky downstream but more than anything id like to catch one in those upper reaches where my grandpa used to chase them.

@Adam yeah, most folks call rockbass red eyes, can't blame them, their eyes are red! 🤣