White bass, palmetto bass, sunshine bass, striped bass, they are all similar, but different.Found in reservoirs and rivers throughout Texas, white bass and striped bass are considered true bass, as opposed to largemouth bass which are really a member of the sunfish family.

If that is not confusing enough throw in the palmetto and sunshine basses, both hybrids of a cross between white bass and striped bass, and the waters can get pretty murky for fishermen trying to determine which are which to stay within Texas Parks and Wildlife Department limits.

While white bass occur naturally across the state, TPWD currently stocks striped bass in 12 lakes and hybrids in 28. Two lakes in the state, Tawakoni and Buchanan receive both.

For the most part daily limits statewide are uniform at five stripers or their hybrids, 18 inches or longer and 25 white bass with a minimum length limit of 10 inches.

It takes striped bass and hybrid striped bass two to three years to reach the legal 18 inches, and it’s in that time frame that the fish are most vulnerable to be mistaken for white bass.

Guide Jim Beggerly has seen the problem at Lake Palestine where increased stocking efforts of hybrid striped bass by TPWD since 2013 have put the fish on fishermen’s radars once again.

“I recently had a discussion with Game Warden Chris Swift, whose area includes Lake Palestine, about this and he told me that there are a lot of fishermen who don’t know. He cited examples lately on Lake Palestine where people were keeping 12- to 16-inch fish that they thought were whites that were actually last year’s stocking of juvenile hybrids,” Beggerly said.

This probably is not the first time there has been confusion on the lake. Palestine was first stocked with hybrids in 1978. White bass began to show up in the early 1980s, most likely hauled into the lake from Lake Tawakoni by fishermen thinking it would be a good idea.

Although controversial in the beginning, the hybrid fishery gained a following from fishermen who enjoyed fighting the strong fish or the ease with which they could be found in schools and caught compared to largemouth bass.

While the white bass fishery at the lake has flourished, the hybrid fishery fell off during the 1980s when the department quit stocking it. The department began restocking it again in the 1990s, but beginning in the late 1990s stocking was hit and miss because of the impact of drought and golden algae at hatcheries used to produce the fish.

While white bass reproduce naturally in reservoirs and rivers, the stripers and hybrids are a put-and-take fishery meaning they are hatchery produced and stocked in lakes for harvest. Because of that they could be considered a more valuable resource, and fishermen who harvest them early, whether intentionally or because of misidentification are cheating themselves and others out of a great fishery as they mature.

For someone new to the fishery identifying a mature white bass from immature hybrids and stripers can be difficult, but not impossible. TPWD’s Outdoor Annual provides information to help, as does the department’s website.

However, Beggerly believes those descriptions can be confusing in their own right.

“There are technical descriptions that talk about the tooth patches (one for white bass and two for stripers and their hybrids) and dorsal spines, and there are common misconceptions that use the broken side lines, but here’s the method that I use. I’ve discussed this method with a number of game wardens and TPWD Fisheries people, and they agree with it,” Beggerly explained.

“To determine whether the fish is a hybrid striper or a white bass, look only at the fish from the anal fin, that’s the bottom fin behind the anus, back to the tail. If there is only one stripe that goes all the way to the tail, it’s a white, which has a 10 inch minimum. If there are at least 3 stripes that go all the way to the tail, it’s a hybrid, which has an 18 inch minimum.”

The guide said the stripes are also different in color with white bass have stripes that are a light black or gray and thinner. The hybrids stripers are thicker and darker especially toward the tail.

However, this is Nature, and as the saying goes there are no straight lines (or rules) in the wild.

“There may be an occasional fish that you’ll have to look at for the tooth patches, and yes, you might release a fish that could have been a keeper, but this method should keep you out of trouble when they’re biting hot and heavy,” Beggerly said.

 

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