Angler practicing for tournament in Virginia catches rare fish most have ‘never seen’


Irene Wright
Mon, February 13, 2023

Jacob Moore set out to catch some largemouth bass.

Moore, an arborist who competes in local fishing tournaments in Virginia, was on the James River practicing for an upcoming competition when he made a remarkable catch.

“I was out there practicing for a tournament, catching a bunch of fish,” Moore told the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. “When I hooked into that one, I thought I had a saltwater fish on at first, but lo and behold, it was a largemouth! A very different largemouth, though.”

On the other end of Moore’s fishing line was a golden largemouth bass.

Officials say the golden bass is “extremely rare” and caused by a genetic mutation.

“I haven’t seen anything like that before,” Moore told wildlife officials. “I’ve seen bass with black spots, but I’d never seen an albino one.”

Moore wasn’t the only one that was surprised.

“Golden largemouth bass are extremely rare and most anglers have never seen them, let alone heard of them before,” said Alex McCrickard, VDWR aquatic education coordinator.

McCrickard said the coloration is caused by a genetic mutation called xanthism that causes the skin pigment to change color.

“Yellow pigmentation dominates in xanthism, as you can see in Moore’s golden largemouth,” McCrickard said.

Moore said his golden fish was about 16 ½ inches long. After taking a few pictures, he returned the fish to the water.

To keep a largemouth bass from the James River, the fish must be longer than 22 inches, according to Virginia law.

Another golden bass was caught in Arkansas in 2021, and an Arkansas Game and Fish biologist said catching the fish was “akin to hitting the Powerball, only without the cash payout,” because it was like catching “one fish in a million.”

According to Virginia wildlife officials, a standard largemouth bass found in the James River is normally a dark green that fades into a white belly that can have dark spots that create a line down the middle of the tail.

The fish weigh on average 2 to 4 pounds, but they can be as large at 10 pounds in some places.

The James River runs horizontally across the state, emptying into the Atlantic in Newport News.