ID please?

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santoury;936594; said:
Yes, I am aware of the "jaw / eye" thing, which is why I still wonder. The jaw is a bit in front of the eye actually in this picture. This is why I suggested somebody post pics of same-sized babies of both.

Same here, which is why I made a thread.

My other post was from the DuPage County Forest Preserve's website, saying that they don't stock small mouth, only large.
 
Steve - check out if smallmouths are native to your state - and go from there. I do think they are.
 
Santoury, its either a LMB or possibly a Spotted/Kentucky bass though I dont think they range that far north. Where is Roselle btw? If it is in the southern part of the state it could be a spotted bass.

SMB at that size are actually black. That is where the term "black bass" comes from. I thought it was strange that LMB, SMB, Spotted bass, and the Coosa River bass where called black bass when they werent black. I did some research and come to find out baby SMB are black and I guess the name got stuck to all of them!
 
Wow - cool! Never knew this. I'd love to see a pic of a black baby then!
 
Here is a pic I quickly googled. You cant see much but you can clearly see that they are black!

The more I look at the OPs fish the more I think its a spotted/Kentucky bass. The lateral stripe is broken and the jaw hinge clearly reaches the pupil instead of extending beyond the eye.

smallmouthfry.jpg
 
Yeah, that's why I was thinking smallmouth

Also, I think ANY baby bass smaller than a penny would look black lol
Would still love to see a pic of one of comparable size. Way cool pic though.
 
Roselle is ~20 miles west of Chicago. Not in the southern part of IL at all.

I googled pics yesterday for about an hour and came up with that picture also, JD762, I had no luck finding any side shots of a baby SMB.

Thanks everyone for your insight, maybe we'll just have to wait and see when he's bigger though.
 
LMB and SMB look pretty similar to the adults unless you're talking about the super tiny SMB which as said above look black at only a very young age.

As I recall (which ain't what it used to be) LMB have a bi-color caudal and SMB and Spotted bass have a tri-color caudal in very young fish. If you catch a LMB looking fish with a tri-color caudal, it's likely a spotted bass. Reference books are really the source for this information.

And Roselle is outside of the natural distribution of spotted bass.

SMB.jpg

LMB.jpg
 
santoury;936555; said:
Looks more like a smallmouth to me? Could somebody post pics of definite known LM vs SM at this size?

All I know is that smallmouth bass don't have a horizontal stripe like largmouth bass do.
 
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