Name/Relations || Range/Sizes || Habitat & Habits ||  Notes

	Note: one tooth patch on tongue, stripes usually faint, stripes below lateral line usually indistict, compressed shape. Olive blue to grey at top fades  to silver or white on sides, stripes grey, olive, or black and not continuous below lateral line.  Mouth nearly centered vertically and relatively small. Dorsal fin in two distinct lobes.

Common Name:  White Bass
Other Common Names:  striped bass, silver bass, rock bass
Scientific name:  Morone chrysops
Family:  Temporate Basses (Percichthyidae)
Related Species:  Yellow Bass, White Perch, Striped Bass, Hybrid Wiper (Anglers need to be able to tell them apart)
 

Sizes:  Six pounds tops, more common 1/2lb-2lbs (6"-14")

Habitat: Freshwater.  Open water in larger lakes and rivers.  A schooling fish, can also enter shallower areas if deeper water or a channel is nearby.  Prefers water in the 55-65 degree F range, but will feed in 36 degree F to 80 degree F water if more comfortable water is nearby.  Prefers rocky and gravelly bottoms in clear, cool lakes or rocky to sandy bottoms in clear to turbid rivers.

Spawning Habits:  Spring spawner, begins forming schools segrated by gender when the water hits the mid to high 50 F range.  These schools then seek creeks, sloughs, or gravel bars and mingle to spawn.  Eggs are fertiled and  drift freely in the current (hense lots of eggs).  Spawning females are larger and outnumbered by younger, smaller males (2-3 years old). Extremely prolific and short lived.

Feeding Habits:  Schooling fishes, often segregated by size, feed in large groups.  The smaller bass concentrate on worms, molluscs, insects, fry, and crustaceans (scuds, freshwater shrimp, small creyfish), while larger bass concentrate on minnows such as small shad, shiners, and chubs.  They prefer to feed in areas of moderate to light current in rivers, and minnow feeding schools will shadow minnow schools closely.  

Notes:  A highly popular ultralight gamefish in the midwest, it is often caught using small jigs, spoons, spinners, and plugs (1"-2" long), and on small crappie sized minnows (and on many crappie techniques!).  It can be also caught on free drifted live minnows and small worms.  River anglers can concentrate on channel edges, slough channels, and behind dams, especially in early to late spring and late fall to early winter.  Schooling, feeding whites often boil on the surface and are an easy catch on nearly any small lure or fly fished on light line (2lb-6lbtest) and moved quickly.  They can also be attracted at night to flood lights on deep water docks in large lakes.   A staple for the spring and winter big river angler.