Mean Mouth Bass are very rare. The Largemouth Bass/Smallmouth Bass hybrid is much rarer than the Spotted Bass/Smallmouth bass.

What is a Mean Mouth Bass

When we first heard of the Mean Mouth we checked all our reference material and couldn’t find any type of fish with that name. However after checking Google, we were able to find several solid references.

 

And thanks to several good fishing forums we were able to further identify the fish behind the name, Mean Mouth Bass. We even had a picture mistakenly identified as a Spotted Bass on our Introduction to Spotted Bass. (Technically, we were only half wrong.)

Mean Mouth Bass Identification

Firstly Mean Mouth Bass is more of a nickname than a name for a given type of bass. The name was first given to a hybrid bass where the parents were a Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu) and a Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides).

 

Offspring were rare due to the difference in habitat preferred by the parents.

 

Today the name Mean Mouth Bass is more commonly referred to as the offspring of a Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu) and a Spotted Bass (Micropterus punctulatus).

Mean Mouth Bass are very Rare

The Largemouth/Smallmouth bass hybrid is much rarer than the Spotted Bass/Smallmouth bass. According to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife, the only states to have Mean Mouth Bass include Missouri and Georgia.

 

Kentucky is currently looking for specimens of the species and asking anglers who have caught one to send it into the Department for testing.

Fishing Techniques

We’re not about to try and compile a list of fishing techniques for such a small population of hybrid bass. With such a population any such techniques gathered would have little support from the scientific method.

 

We don’t care so much that the Mean Mouth Bass is not classified, we have extensive coverage of the Whiterock Bass. But with such few numbers, there’s little angling interest and not enough research to be able to provide anything other than angler’s best guesses.

 

However if you want to try and find a Mean Mouth Bass, we suggest your best option would be the Missouri and Georgia waterways where the habitat of the Smallmouth Bass and Spotted Bass overlap.