Just When I Thought I Had Seen and Heard Everything

I've heard of the golden rule...a golden moment...the golden age...and even the golden hour. I've also heard that "silence is golden," I've crossed--both over and under--the Golden Gate Bridge a few times, and I've heard the story about "the goose that laid the golden egg." But never, until today, had I heard (or seen) anything about a golden bass like you see here.

My newfound discovery occurred while I was digging around the Internet, looking for material of any kind I might be able to turn into another blog post.

So what causes this rare condition, known as "xanthism"? As explained by Dr. Robert Montgomerie, a biology professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, "Normal fish scales on bass receive incoming white light, and molecular structures convert that light to blue or yellow, which makes the fish look green. In the yellow bass, it is likely that some spontaneous mutation occurs that prevents the scales from making the proper molecular structures to convert white light to blue.

"Without those structures, the fish looks gold, rather than green. It's not that the bass has gained a yellow pigment, but rather, it has lost the ability to produce the blue colors that make its scales green," he concluded.

What are your chances of seeing one of these rare golden beauties? Evidently, not very good. For instance, workers at the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) reported that, after sampling more than 255,000 largemouth bass from 175 different bodies of water in a 10-year period, they've yet to see one example of this genetic phenomenon.

And Gene Gilliland, B.A.S.S. conservation director and long-time fisheries biologist in Oklahoma, was quoted as saying, "In thousands of hours of electrofishing, I never saw one (of these fish) in the wild. You shouldn't expect to see one, either."

The only problem, though, is that there have been several reports of these unusual catches this year--everywhere from California to Florida, to Kentucky, to Nebraska, and even to Canada, where the photo at right (http://www.quintefishing.com/qfs.htm) was taken during a Quinte Fishing Series bass tournament.

Angler Markus Bardy made the rare catch near Belleville, in the Bay of Quinte on Lake Ontario, while fishing with his partner, Casey Kimmerly, according to tournament weighmaster Brad Pound. This golden largemouth weighed 3 lbs. and helped the duo win the tournament with a total of 35.94 lbs.

Nevertheless, experts collectively chalk all these sightings up to "nothing more than a remarkable coincidence." Their contention is that if you spend time in the outdoors, on the water, in the field, or in the woods, you have to marvel at the variety you can experience in nature.

"Sure, there are patterns, tendencies, habits, and cycles," they say, "but if you spend anytime at all 'out there,' you will encounter something from time to time that you never have seen or experienced before. And that is one thing that keeps us coming back, again and again."

I can't argue with that logic.