Smallmouth vs Tiger Bass

by Ann
(Walton NY USA)

shawns fish

Q. How can you tell a smallmouth bass from a tiger bass? Is there a way to tell if the small mouth bass is female or male?

A. First of all that is one very cool looking bass!

I really don't know much about the tiger bass and honestly its your question that got me looking into the fish.

From what I can gather the Tiger Bass is just a strain of Northern bass that is supposed to be more aggressive. For the most part they look just like a regular Largemouth.

There is some good info in this article on Tiger Bass from Strike King.

What you show there "looks" more like a largemouth than a smallmouth. The pattern is crazy though but I really think we can safely say it is not a smallmouth.

As for determining the sex of a bass, this can be really difficult unless its in the spawning season in which you can tell the males by a white milky liquid that may be coming from the underside of the fish.

Another way is if you plan on keeping them you will find eggs inside the female when you cut them open.

Go about half way down in this discussion on a popular bass fishing forum and there is a good explanation there.

Hope this helps. Thanks for sharing the pic.