On April 4, 2001, Randy Dickson of Westminster caught a 5-pound, 2.5-ounce redeye bass from Lake Jocassee that stands as the state record for the species and has been recognized by the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame as the world record.
Unfortunately, Dickson’s fish is most likely the last redeye bass record of any kind to be set in South Carolina waters — at least in Lake Jocassee, according to biologist Dan Rankin of SCDNR.
The reason: hybridization with spotted bass that were transported from Georgia’s Lake Lanier to Lake Keowee by anglers desiring to add another species to that lake’s fisheries. Spotted bass were then lifted into Lake Jocassee through the pumpback turbines at Duke Power’s hydroelectric plant in the dam that separates the lakes, biologists believe.
Biologists often refer to the relocation of species into habitats where they did not exist before as “citizen science” because it is done without scientific study. The results are often disastrous, because new species tend to create their own niche in a habitat, often forcing native species out.
In the case of the redeye bass, that species in Lake Keowee — and now in both Jocassee and Hartwell — is being hybridized out of existence by the growing presence of the spotted or Alabama bass, as the subspecies is being referred to by biologists.
Until the Alabama bass began showing up in Keowee, Hartwell, Russell and finally Jocassee, Rankin said, “Redeye bass were very abundant in the upper Savannah River system, but now it is hard in the reservoirs to find pure redeye bass anymore.”
The hybridization in Lake Jocassee has created “a real hodgepodge of bass, at least with the native redeye and the Alabama bass,” Rankin said.
Dickson and some other local anglers believe the hybridization now also includes smallmouth bass stocked into Jocassee by SCDNR, calling the cross “smots,” though Rankin doubts that is happening or is a problem.
“In our genetics work, we do not see much evidence of a cross between smallmouth and the Alabama bass,” he said. “The ones that are really hybridizing are the Alabama bass and the native redeye.”
There is evidence in Keowee that the hybridization is eliminating the redeye cross, Rankin said.
“Our genetic studies there indicate through some selective pressure, the hybridization kind of hybridized the redeye away and back toward the more pure form of Alabama bass,” he said. “Somehow, there was seldom any form of redeye genes going forward.”
At the time Dickson caught the world-record redeye in Jocassee, Rankin said, the Alabama bass had not showed up in the fishery.
“We really had world-class redeye bass in that system. In our netting and shocking, it was not uncommon to see 4-pound-plus redeye bass. Now with this hybrid swarm, we will probably never be able to certify another state record Alabama bass or redeye bass in Lake Jocassee — at least anytime soon.”
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