Hybrid bass: Stripers on steroids

The motivation behind the creation of the hybrid striped bass isn’t really documented. When fisheries biologists discovered that if they introduced hormones to induce female striped bass those bass would ovulate, it stands to reason that those biologists were curious as to whether they could duplicate their success by cross breeding two different fish.

In Mississippi, the hybrid striped bass are made in a lab by crossing the eggs from a white bass female and the milt of a striped bass male. This cross has come to be known as the “sunshine bass” or “wiper.”

The physical appearance of hybrids is similar to that of a striper, with two noticeable exceptions. The hybrid’s stripes are generally broken in appearance behind the gill plate and below the lateral line, and the hybrid has a broader more rounded shape than the elongated bullet-shaped striper.

There is one key biological difference that got biologists’ attention, and made them more attractive to stocking in the south. Like the white bass, the hybrid thrives in warm waters.

Hybrids grow rapidly during their first two years of life while feeding on a variety of insects and zooplankton until they become large enough to consume baitfish, at which time they begin to almost exclusively feed on forage fish.

The life span of hybrid striped bass is somewhere in the range of 5 to 6 years, a trait they inherit from their white bass parent rather than their striped bass relatives, which can live more than 25 years in cooler waters.

By shocking the hybrid eggs prior to hatching, Mississippi biologists removed the fish’s ability to spawn, but not their instinct to procreate. Hybrid striped bass do participate in spawning runs, which is why at Barnett Reservoir they are found almost exclusively on the upper river area in late winter and early spring.

Fishermen get credit for another discovery about hybrids. Pound for pound, the hybrid bass out bites and outfights the striped bass. This perhaps is best attributed to its physical shape. Whereas the striped bass grows long before it begins to but on girth, the hybrid bass generally has more profile than striped bass of the same age and weight.

The hybrid uses this profile to cut right angles against the angler when caught on hook and line. This wider profile combined with a tenacious attitude has resulted in some anglers describing the hybrid as “stripers on steroids.”

Despite that trait, hybrids never gained much footing with fishermen on Barnett Reservoir and biologists quit stocking them in 2012, which means any hybrid caught now on The Rez will be a monster.

Stripers are still stocked annually as part of a multi-state agreement to help restore the population in the coastal rivers of the northern Gulf of Mexico, including the Pearl River.