Yellow bass (Morone mississippiensis) is a freshwater species recorded in the United States.
Scientific name: Morone mississippiensis · Water: Freshwater
Size: up to 46 cm
The yellow bass is a moronid that occurs in the pools and backwaters of small to large rivers, and also in ponds and lakes. Young fish feed on microcrustaceans and midge larvae, while adults feed on fish such as shad and silversides. Maximum length is about 46 cm total length, commonly about 24 cm, and it can live 11 years. It is taken in subsistence fisheries and is a gamefish. Fishing vulnerability is low to moderate at 35 of 100 and resilience low. IUCN lists it as least concern.
The body is deep and carries five to seven dark stripes along the flanks, the lowest of which are often broken or disrupted in front of the origin of the anal fin. It resembles its congeners the white bass and the striped bass, and is separated from both by those offset lateral stripes above the anal fin and by the absence of tooth patches on the tongue; it differs further from the white bass in having nine or ten anal rays where that species has eleven to thirteen. The back is usually a dark olive green and the abdomen and flanks a silvery yellow. It occurs in the somewhat clear waters of the Mississippi basin from Minnesota to Louisiana, and also in the Trinity and Tennessee rivers and the lakes around them, particularly where vegetation is dense and turbidity low, and it may move into brackish estuaries. Spawning follows the pattern seen in the white bass, with fish making spawning runs into the tributaries, and it usually takes place in moderately shallow water, the female lying on her side and exposing her eggs as the male fertilises them from above. The larvae school together to avoid predation and grow fairly quickly.
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