IFISH say's,

A few months ago, CZ and I went fishin' at the Delta. CZ all of a sudden sticks this fish and when we get it in the boat, we both look at eachother and are like " WTF ?! Look at those colors ! " Nor him or I have ever seen something like this. Have any of you seen anything like this ?? Too bad we didn't keep it, we could've called it a " Teenage Mutant Ninja Bass " !:+ :+



http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/4330-Picture019.jpg

Nice photo-shoping. It would be cool though.

Looks like a straight redeye, or a smallie/redeye hybrid. If you could show us the head of the fish it would be easier to tell.

Those horizontal bars are classic redeye.

I agree with Urban, that's some type of Redeye hybrid. There are most definitely red-eyes in the Delta.

Have a look at bigreenjobasses' pic in his gallery of his monster red eye and check out the horizontal bars on the fish (yes this one is photshopped and yes that was a 5lb 4oz fish)

http://www.calfishing.com/albums/album21/edited_5_lb_4_oz_redeye.sized.jpg

IFISH say's,

Sacto John, I swear on my FAMILY this fish is 100% real ! CZ will confirm this. We were in shock of this ourselves. I was using a camera phone and I wanted to capture the coloration of the fish. I didn't think my camera phone would take a picture that good, so I didn't get the head. This IS NOT a hoax.

IFISH

I was just making that assumption because of the dark black line s between the belly of the fish and CZ's shirt. I did not meen to offend you I just thought you were haveing a bit of fun with us.

IFISH say's,

No offense taken bro, just making sure folks know this is the REAL and not fake. All good bro.

IFISH

Heres another http://www.calfishing.com/gallery/album11/aaj that is a smallie red eye cross and here is a smallie largemouth cross that was tagged and confirm by dfg
http://www.calfishing.com/gallery/1/abi

I think the one you have is a smallie redeye cross but if there is ever a smallie striper cross I am 100% sure it will come from the delta I have cought some weird things out there all kinds of hybrids and even more recently tlapia have been showing up a bit in schools with bluegil

I dont think its possible that a striper can cross with a smallie. I take it back, the two cannot produce offspring. They are separated so far apart taxonomically thats there just isnt the possibility. Plus, they both have different spawning strategies: stripers are broadcast spawners, smallmouth build nests.

Anyway, too bad you dont have the head. That would really help. I have a nice photo of a pure redeye from New Melones where you can see the horizontal stripes. Ill post it later.

This is a straight redeye, complete with correct fin coloration. Its was cool catching these things in the Stanislaus, some had a very odd blueish color to their bellies. Seemed the furhter up the river we went, the more the coloration was pure redeye.



http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/4334-Adrians_Redeye.jpg

Man, I forgot how pronounced those horizontal lines were until you showed that picture! I'm going to have to agree that you had a redeye or maybe a redeye smallie cross.

Matt