Lately I’ve found myself drawn more and more to out of the way backwater places that no one else pays much attention to, and less and less to the big world famous reservoir practically out the back door. I guess there just seem to be too many people, and I’d like to get away from them, even if it means catching tiny fish of questionable genetic heritage out of pot holes and ditches.
I finally got around to trying out a stream (this is a charitable label) near my in-laws’ home in the northeast corner of Alabama. This thing is practically a ditch. It drains a small cove branching north off from the main Tennessee Valley before petering out just south of the Tennessee line. But it does manage to flow year round, and I’d heard of someone at some point in the murky past actually fishing it, but, and this is important, I’d never heard of anyone actually catching anything out of it. So, I didn’t have very high expectations.
I showed up with a beat up old spinning rod and a pack of what I thought were 6″ plastic curly tail worms. Turns out they were actually 10″ versions. This lowered my expectations even further, figuring such a large lure would send any fish present scurrying for cover, certain they were about to be swallowed by a big cottonmouth.
The water was low and clear, highly unusual for April. Which reminds me, what the heck is up with the weather?! We’ve been consistently in the 80s since the beginning of March, and rain has been scarce. I had grown accustomed to below freezing weather well into April the last several years. I’ve never seen anything like this Spring. It’s not unusual for Alabama to experience some warm weather as early as February, but it never holds on consistently until late April or March, and there’s always plenty of rain. Not this year. I sincerely hope this isn’t a sign of what Summer will be like.
Redeye bass with a mouthfull of plastic worm.
Anyway, I tossed the huge plastic worm around the 10′ wide creek for awhile and was surprised, nay, shocked when I felt a telltale bump and the line took off sideways. I set the hook and brought a hefty redeye bass to hand (at least that’s what I think it was – actually looked like the hapless offspring of a mass orgy of various basses and sunfishes, but I’m no biologist). The thing was fat as a pig and put up a pretty good battle. I missed several more fish afterward, and figured the size of the lure was to blame for the poor hookup ratio. Couldn’t have been rusty hook setting skills…
This episode set me to thinking. This little creek runs for several miles in either direction from where I was standing, eventually petering out to nothing upstream and dumping into the main Tennessee River downstream. It even looked somewhat wadeable (a rarity in this part of Alabama), and I could certainly float it in my kayak (dragging it over the occasional obstructions). I’m convinced almost no one else would consider “wasting” their time on it. Heck, I’m a small stream guy, and I took years to drag myself down there and try it out. I think portions of it would make pretty good fly fishing water, which is a huge bonus. Just thinking about it made me supremely happy. I think that maybe so long as there are unloved little backwaters like this to explore, then things might actually still be okay with the world. Not perfect, for sure, but just maybe not as bad as watching cable news would have you believe.
Nathan
Another shot of the fish. Looks similar to a smallmouth in this photo, but not so much in real-time.
Pretty fish, Nathan. Very unusual coloring. Redeye will usually have some white on the edges of the tail fin. Did you notice a tooth patch on the tongue? Redeye should have one, but a smallmouth will not.
Scott,
I actually thought this was a smallmouth when I first saw it because of the bronze coloring, but it really didn’t look like one in person. It would have been a strange spot to catch a smallmouth due to water type – slow, warm (in summer), silty – but not out of the question. The dorsal fins were exaggerated and connected into one long, solid fin, which looked pretty unusual and doesn’t really come through in the photos. The fish did have a distinctive white edge on the anal fin, but not on the tail fin. All the fins on the bottom were edged in black. I wasn’t sure what the identifying features of a redeye were when I caught the fish, so I didn’t check the tongue patch. Only later did I try to ID it. Also notice the black spot on the gill flap.
Nathan
Also thought it might be a rock bass, but it doesn’t look like any I’ve ever seen. It was much more, ah, “bass-shaped” if that makes sense. Most rock bass I’ve seen were shaped more like a crappie. However this photo looks a whole lot like my fish and it’s IDed as a rock bass:
http://graphicleftovers.com/graphic/rock-bass-ambloplites-rupestris/
Nathan
I’m going to see if any of my contacts can assist with the ID…
It’s a rock bass (Ambloplites spp) or goggle eye if you’re in Missouri. I’m not sure about Alabama specifically, so there may be more than 1 species in this genus there. You can tell it’s a rock bass by looking at the number of spines in the anal fin. Within the sunfish family, which includes bass, only rock bass, flier, and crappie have more than 3 anal spines. I can count about 6 in the first picture. Besides, that first picture is spot-on “rock bass” just by looking at it.
Jim Long, PhD
Assistant Unit Leader-Fisheries and Adjunct Assistant Professor
OK Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Andy, thanks for the ID information.
The Alabama Rock Bass record is 1 lb. 6 oz.
It looks like you may have been close!
Cool! Thanks for the scientific wisdom. Yeah, it probably wasn’t far off from the st. record. I’m guessing it might have been full of eggs. Now that I know, I’m going to keep my eyes open for a record fish. Would be cool to get in the record books….
Nathan