Striped Basses

IDENTIFICATION OF THE
TEMPERATE BASS
White Bass, Striped Bass, their Hybrid and Yellow Bass

Yellow bass can be identified because they do not have a tooth patch on their tongue and the second spine of the anal fin is longer than the base of the anal fin.
White bass can be identified because they have a single center tooth patch, and their stripes are faint. On a white bass, the first stripe below the lateral line is not distinct nor complete to tail.
Some striped bass may have broken lines, but the stripes of a fresh hybrid are distinct and definitely broken. The shape of the head can be a distinguishing characteristic between the striped bass and the hybrid bass (wiper).

White bass (above) and yellow bass (below) were caught in Wilson Reservoir in April of 2007 by Steve Hacker.