I have caught a bass like your golden/greenish bass right out of the weeds in two feet of water. And then on the next cast caught the bass on the right with the white belly and the blackish stripes/speckles coloration off a stickup in 9' of water.

Countershading in the animal world is when an animal is dark when viewed from above and light-colored when viewed from below. This is strongly selected for when predators from above are viewing the prey against a dark lower background, and predators from below are viewing the prey against a light upper background or a light sky.

Of course, the predators themselves also gain an advantage from effective camouflage.

I think the "cleanest" looking white-belly/dark upper bass that I have caught were the ones I believe were suspended around deeper structure.

That is just my limited experience over only contemporaneous variables.


When you add all of the other variables, bass can have a very wide variation. I think time of day, time of year, color of water, color of adjacent habitat, genetics, spawning season, etc. can all affect the coloration of the bass.

I am not sufficiently calibrated to enough situations to give examples of those other factors, but I suspect some of our experts can.

I just hope you keep catching and photographing some nice chunk LMB!