# Red Eyes?



## mbelperio (Apr 4, 2008)

I have been fishing rivers and creeks for many years. I mostly fish the LM Bullskin Creek and White Oak creek. All the smallies I catch have red eyes. I was wondering if others have the same experience. Anytime you see a species identification chart you never see the red eyes identifier mentioned. Are there sub species of smallmouths? What color are the eyes smallies out of Lake Erie. And no I am not catching rock bass. I know the difference there are a ton of them down from the East Fork splillway. Has anyone caight a rock bass in the Little Miami? I never have and have been fishing it for at least 30 years. I fish th LM around the loveland and Newtown area.


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## M.Magis (Apr 5, 2004)

Are you sure you know what a rockbass looks like? I don&#8217;t mean that in a demeaning way, it&#8217;s just that different regions have different names for some fish. Around here, most everyone refers to warmouth as rockbass, and many people also refer to green sunfish as rockbass. True rockbass are the only fish I can think of that have red eyes, at least that you would be catching. Not to say it can&#8217;t happen, but I&#8217;ve never seen or heard of a smallmouth having red eyes.


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## mbelperio (Apr 4, 2008)

Definitely not rock bass. Do you fish the Little Miami or GMR? Maybe the GMR smallies have black eyes.


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## FISNFOOL (May 12, 2009)

Interesting thread. Can you post a pic?


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## jonnythfisherteen2 (Mar 5, 2011)

they may be warmouth.


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## SConner (Mar 3, 2007)

I fish mostly on the Great Miami River and *almost* all smallmouth I have caught have brown eyes... But not all of them.


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## bigham3535 (Mar 12, 2012)

Where a good place to catch rock bass


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## mbelperio (Apr 4, 2008)

thanks for the pic of the verification that some smallies have red eyes sconner. Wade down the east fork of the Little Miami below the east fork state park dam you can catch tons of rock bass.


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## M.Magis (Apr 5, 2004)

Well there you go, great picture. That&#8217;s the first one I&#8217;ve ever seen. Or maybe I just never paid attention?


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## QueticoMike (Sep 25, 2008)

I thought every smallmouth I have ever caught from anywhere had red eyes. Never seen one that didn't have red eyes???


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## Bassnpro1 (Apr 6, 2004)

I've caught plenty of smallmouth that have red eyes. I've also caught a lot of spots that had them. I've even caught a few largemouth this year that had red eyes. I thought they were little spots, but they weren't. Red eyes on bass are fairly common, and in my experience it is far more common in spring. 


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## SMBHooker (Jan 3, 2008)

Most not all but most smallmouth I catch have red eyes. I had six last night all red eyes!!!!


Sent from . . . off and over there.


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## BIGTCAT'N (Apr 12, 2006)

I'm with Mike. I was thinking almost all the smallies I've caught had red eyes. Here is a description an smallies for wikapedia...........


The smallmouth bass is generally brown (seldom yellow) with red eyes, and dark brown vertical bands, rather than a horizontal band along the side. There are 1315 soft rays in the dorsal fin. The upper jaw of smallmouth bass extends to the middle of the eye.


Their habitat plays a significant role in their color, weight, and shape. River water smallmouth that live among dark water tend to be rather torpedo-shaped and very dark brown to be more efficient for feeding. Lakeside smallmouth bass, however, that live in sandy areas, tend to be a light yellow-brown to adapt to the environment in a defensive state and are more oval-shaped.

[edit] Habitat


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## nitsud (May 22, 2010)

Watch out for the ones with red eyes. They will mesmerize you and make you spend all of your money on small pieces of lead, wood, plastic, and animal parts, along with expensive sticks and thin string. I've seen it a million times...


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## pizzacouple (Jun 5, 2011)

I have only caught one smallmouth and it had brown eyes but i have seen people other than myself catch them with red... Im more jealous of the fact that people out there are catchin nice fish than caring what color their eyes are


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## SConner (Mar 3, 2007)

This thread got me curious, so I looked thru all 96 smallmouth pictures I have posted on this site and the stats are as follows:

70 - brown eyes
14 - red eyes
12 - could not tell from picture

Interesting thing on the 14 with red eyes... 5 were caught in same general area about 6 miles north of where I live, 7 were caught in same general area in a spot right by my house and only 2 others caught with red eyes.

Seems like select areas are producing more red eyed smallmouth which makes sense... More red eyed parents produce more red eyed offspring. My numbers would suggest that brown eyes are a dominant trait. Picture below shows brown eyes.


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## SMBHooker (Jan 3, 2008)

nitsud said:


> Watch out for the ones with red eyes. They will mesmerize you and make you spend all of your money on small pieces of lead, wood, plastic, and animal parts, along with expensive sticks and thin string. I've seen it a million times...


I suffer heavily from the infliction for which there is no cure but to keep catching them. Maybe when I get the 20"er it will help some. 




Sent from . . . off and over there.


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## bank runner (May 23, 2011)

I caught 11 Smallmouth this morning all had red eyes just like all of the smallmouth I've caught have.


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## Aqua Man (Aug 8, 2011)

I fish the GMR from Moraine down to Franklin-ish and have caught both red eye and black / brown eye SMB. The red eye are less frequent and are somewhat localized to certain areas.

I have a little stream just up the road from me where I have regularly caught LMB with red / orange eyes. May be Kentucky / spotted Bass too though, never looked at the tongue. Seems to be an abundance of them in this one area but not elsewhere.

It is likely that you see localize populations of them because they are breeding back into the same gene pool. If red eyes are a submissive trait but they are breeding with others that carry the gene, it will become more of a dominate trait.


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## TRAILGATOR (Jul 3, 2011)

That would be a negative Aqua Man. A recessive gene only appears when it is pure meaning in order to have Blue Eyes both your parents have to either have Blue Eyes(bb) or Brown Eyes w/ a resessive Blue Eye gene, hybrid (Bb). Blue Eyes are pure Blue (bb); Brown Eyes can be either Pure(BB) or Hybrid (Bb). Two blue eyed people can't have a brown eyed child but two brown eyed people could have a blue eyed child. Dominant is always dominant; resessive is always resessive. Only way your senerio can happen is if the Brown Eyed Smallies stop breeding.


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## Bad Bub (Jan 17, 2006)

I fish the Ohio river alot, and I honestly couldn't tell you which i've seen more of, red eyes or brown eyes. We catch them with both and really don't give it much thought anymore. I don't know if it's genetics (brown hair vs. Blonde hair) or if it has to do with there surroundings at the time. But it is cool when you swing one aboard with eyes lit up like candles! They tend to grab your attention.

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## imalt (Apr 17, 2008)

Trailgator it is possible for two blue eye parents to have a brown eye child. My son has brown eyes and me and my wife have blue eyes. Doctor told me its only like a 0.5% chance. Probaly the same chances of winning the lottery. Wish I would of won the lottery. I dont remember but I think the majority of the smallies I have caught in twin creek and around franklin had red eyes.


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## SeanStone (Sep 8, 2010)

SConner said:


> This thread got me curious, so I looked thru all 96 smallmouth pictures I have posted on this site and the stats are as follows:
> 
> 70 - brown eyes
> 14 - red eyes
> ...


Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I always like to read good fishing stats. I'll have to take a closer look this year and see if I can find a few red eyed smallies down home.


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## Aqua Man (Aug 8, 2011)

TRAILGATOR; Your post is largely the point I was trying to make. When fish with red eyes (or the gene for red eyes) spawn together, they likely will produce offspring mostly with red eyes. (ditto for black eyes) But I must humbly admit your correct in that my wording of recessive genes becoming dominate genes is incorrect. I think that how I should have worded it is that red eyes in SMB _may_ be a recessive gene and when two fish that carry _only _that recessive gene that their offspring will have the same. Perhaps I should have just said genetics


To put another way, when fish with a unique trait breed back into one another, (the same gene pool or at least fish that carry the same gene for that trait), that the unique trait often becomes more common amongst their population. There are localized populations of SMB in the GMR that mostly exhibit red eyes where as down stream a mile or so the population mostly has black/ brown eyes. I have to believe that these local populations of the red eyed SMB is a result of them breeding back into the same population.

It has been my experience that the SMB with dark colored eyes, at least in this area, are more plentiful than the ones with red eyes. Always have wondered why and have assumed it was a recessive trait / gene.

I have 25+years experience breeding fish. I have selectively bred fish with more desirable traits (to me anyway) to one another to produce offspring with the same desirable traits. It can take several generation to produce good numbers of what your intention was (albino's for example) but very doable. Based on my experience breeding fish, I suspect that is the case with the localized populations of red eyed SMB but I have no hard proof.


What ever the case, I find it really fascinating.


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## ARReflections (Jan 7, 2011)

Do you find baby smb with red eyes? If so, is it possible the red eyes make the baby smb easier to find and therefore more likely to be eaten by predators. Thus, the brown eyed smb are more plentiful.

The color red has been pretty effective for me when fishing at least...


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## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

All the smallies we have caught out of the Black River have brown eyes..


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## TRAILGATOR (Jul 3, 2011)

Imalt, I stand corrected. I have never heard that before you so I had to check it out. Here is a 2004 USAToday article that immediately came up on my search: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2004-10-14-wonderquest_x.htm


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## TRAILGATOR (Jul 3, 2011)

Aqua, it very attainable to deminsh a dominant trait in a controlled environment, but nature is a WHOLE different story. I am sure that there can be higher concentration red eyed areas,but I am also sure that there is a ***** in the woodpile somewhere nearby making it nearly impossible to get rid of the ol' brown eye.


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## QueticoMike (Sep 25, 2008)

I think most smallmouth have red eyes, some of them look brown because they have a little orange in their eyes. So orange and red make brown right. So the conclusion is it really doesn't matter what color their eyes are just as long as they fight like hell. Now back to fishing


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## nturner (Mar 11, 2012)

I went out to twin creek yesterday and caught two good size smallmouth and both had red eyes. These were the first smallmouth I've ever caught with red eyes. It's funny this happens the day after I saw this post.


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## wrastlnfeesh (Mar 30, 2009)

One from 7 mile creek and one from indian creek over the last week. 

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## Carver (Jan 20, 2010)

Could these be spotted bass?? I guess I should know that I have caught a ton of them but never paid any attention to the eye color.


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## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

Carver said:


> Could these be spotted bass?? I guess I should know that I have caught a ton of them but never paid any attention to the eye color.


Spotted bass look more like a largemouth bass.

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/species_a_to_z/SpeciesGuideIndex/spottedbass/tabid/6765/Default.aspx


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## Carver (Jan 20, 2010)

Well not really, they do resemble a smallmouth quite a lot. Some actually even have spots. Next time you catch a red eye bass rub your finger on it's tongue if it has a small patch of teeth on it that is a spotted bass.


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## xwarandruinx (Jul 7, 2011)

This may sound ignorant, but could it be that the strain from fighting on the line when caught may cause blood vessels to pop, just like when some people get stressed?


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## Mr. Angler (Jan 16, 2009)

Of two recent outings I've had I caught both. Seems the smaller fish tended to have red eyes. Out of close to 30 fish red eyes were the minority. Almost 3 to 1. All fish were caught from the same general area. Just my two cents...


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