Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Fly Fishing & Other Fish Species Mouth Gape of HSB

I'm not sure the mouth gape of HSB is published in the literature. ewest may be able to help us with this info in the literature. We have enough members here that we could do a data accumulation here on the forum for mouth gape of various sizes of HSB. I think the gape of HSB is smaller than that for SMB. As I recall the mouth gape of SMB is not "all that" smaller than for the same length of LMB. It would be a good idea if we compiled this information in the Archives for HSB, SMB and LMB. How about you doing some fishing and measuring to help us???? Please?

For those with ponds, lets go out and catch a fish and measure the fish's total length and the width across its full open mouth. Do not try to stretch the moth open to get extra width. Just hold the mouth open and measure across the opening. When we have numerous measurements this thread can go into the Archives about HSB information. Duplicate measurements are good and give us an idea of the natural variability. Thanks for fishing, measuring and contributing.

Here is my contribution for this project:
HSB Gape Information
Total length then Gape Width.
5.5" gape 0.59" (15mm)
9.75" gape 0.94" (24mm)
13.5" gape 1.1" (28mm)
19.0" gape 1.73" (44mm)
22.0" gape 2.1" (55mm)

Here are some data that I have for SMBass.
Total Lgn Gape Width
5.5" gape 0.71" (18mm)
9.5" gape 1.1" (28mm)
13.5" gape 1.57" (40mm)
17.0" gape 2.3" (58mm)

Here are some of my data for LMBass
Lgn Gape Width

5.5" Gape 0.83" (21mm)
9.5" gape 1.5" (39mm)
12.75" gape 2.0" (51mm)
17.0" gape 3.9" (100mm)