Male or Female?

[keithdog]

Caught a bunch of bass recently and let all but two return to the water. I kept two small 14 inchers to have for dinner. I thought those two would both be males as I know the larger fish are usually females. I was expecting these two small fish to be males. I was not happy to find both full of eggs. So I was wondering if anyone has ever seen any way to distinguish between male and female bass, other than the size rule.

[CMorg]

Ive noticed while in the livewell , sometimes female fish during the spawn have odd spots on them , they look way differant in the livewell than normal bass...I am sure this isnt always the case though..

[Scott McGehee]

here a link to some info http://www.sportscomet.com/Fishing/187311.htm

Bassmaster had a pic in one of their mags showing pics of how to tell the difference but that was several years ago and I don't remember the issue.

[fishin' fool]

To determine the sex of a bass by physical apperance you have to look at the anal vent. A female bass will have a pare shaped vent, and a male will have a more round anal vent. Good fishin

[dietz31684]

I dont want to be the downer, but unless you have experience you prob will not be able to tell....speaking from personal experience. I keep fish in aquariums and venting is the only way to tell a lot of species gender, it is a lot more difficult than it sounds. The fish i keep in my aquarium are only about 6-8" so the venting may not be quite as difficult on a 14" bass, but its not gonna be easy IMO.

[Raul]

Males have 2 openings in the genital papila, females have 3, easy ...... yeah right , when I used to work in Mexico´s equivalent of the Fish and Wildlife department that´s how we sexed the fish, dye the anus with a drop of methilene blue and check for the openings, I did it a lot and still it´s not 100% accurate, once I checked and separated the fish we had to recheck. So for someone without the experience and practice it´s not going to be easy to determine the sex of the fish.