Thread: Fish ID caught on Lake Norfork

I can't give it up. It is a sickness. Y Fish you saw it live and in person what do you think?

Warmouth:
The rock bass is similar in appearance but has 6 anal fin spines compared to the 3 that a warmouth sunfish has. Rock bass have a teardrop under the eye, no radiating lines on the cheek, and a black margin to the fins. Breeding male warmouth sunfish have gold or light blue speckles on their sides and a faint red spot at the rear base of the dorsal fin.

Rock bass:
They are most similar to the warmouth sunfish which have 3 anal spines compared to the 6 that a rock bass has. Rock bass have a dark teardrop under the eye and a black margin to the fins. Warmouth do not have a teardrop and have a light colored margin to the fins that can be white, orange, yellow, or red.

Sources
Warmouth Sunfish
Rock Bass

female rockbass

Yep Rock Bass... BigKev77 is right on...Totally different spieces than a Googleye/Warmouth

This is a Ozark bass. It is only found in the White River Drainage.

Warmouth looks similar but there is a key feature that can identify them. I teach the ASU summer school class to look for 4 to 5 dark lines radiating backwards from the eye.

Thanks for the info Bigkev77. I am pretty sure it is Ozark Rock Bass. It stated they can change to lighter color. And I did not eat it. It went back to grow some. The Walleye I caught were not so lucky. I did spare the lives of several bass small mouth, spotted, and white. I also released a 3 to 4 lbs flathead. The fish were all caught on crawler harness or jigging spoons. The next day I took the wife where the Norfork and White meet and in about 2 hours caught and released about 25 trout. None of the trout had much size biggest about 1 1/2 lbs. There sure is some great fishing up North. I marked a lot of fish I thought might be crappie but never could get a bite. I am going to learn how to catch crappie in those clear deep lakes one of these days.

Check this out! Warmouth are members of the sunfish family, which includes the largemouth bass. They are also known by more colorful local names such as redeye, goggle-eye, red-eyed bream, stump knocker, mudgapper, mo-mouth, morgan, molly, rock bass, open mouth, weed bass, wood bass, strawberry "perch" and mud bass. Because warmouth hit hard and are easily caught, they are popular with some anglers. They are good to eat when caught in clean water, but because they are bottom-feeders like catfish, the flesh can have a strong flavor.

What about this one? Caught on the White River around Batesville....

that appears to be the elusive DorkFish...I bet you caught em on a corndog!?!?(all bill engvall fans should catch that)