Rock Bass

Rock bass are native to the St Lawrence River and Great Lakes system, the upper and middle Mississippi River basin in North America from Québec to Saskatchewan in the north down to Missouri and Arkansas, south to the Savannah River, and throughout the eastern U.S. from New York through Kentucky and Tennessee to the northern portions of Alabama and Georgia and Florida in the south. The rock bass has also been found in the Nueces River system in Texas. A population introduced to the Loire River in France between 1904 and 1910 is successfully self-sustaining, but not invasively expanding, more than 100 years later.

Rock bass are sexually mature at about two to three years of age. Rock bass are polygynandrous, in which both females and males have multiple mates during the breeding season. Spawning occurs from April to early June in warm waters ranging , with females laying from 2,000 to 11,000 eggs. As a result, males can become quite aggressive as they attempt to defend territory and attract and hold females. Rock bass lack courtship displays, so the female enters the nest and joins the male in his circular behavior. Both the female and male simultaneously release their sperm and eggs into the nest. The male guards and fans the eggs, and later raises the young for a short time. Rock bass are known to grow quickly.

]] Rock bass are successfully surviving in their environments and are listed as a species of "least concern" on the IUCN Red List. Based on their population stability, rock bass do not require any special monitoring or conservation management plans. As a sport fish, rock bass are managed to some extent by regulations. There are slot limits for rock bass on some bodies of water. Artificial nesting habitat or ponds can be employed to improve rock bass populations.

Rock bass are considered game fish throughout much of their range, the IGFA all-tackle world record for the species is a tie between fish – one caught in the York River in Ontario, Canada, and one from Lake Erie in Pennsylvania, US, in 1974 and 1998 respectively.

Ambloplites constellatus (Ozark bass), a species of rock bass from the Ozark upland of Arkansas, and Ambloplites ariommus (shadow bass) are true rock bass, but regarded as separate species. Ambloplites rupestris is sometimes called the redeye or redeye bass in Canada, but this name refers more properly to Micropterus coosae, a distinct species of centrarchid native to parts of the American South. Rafinesque originally assigned the rock bass to Bodianus, a genus of marine wrasses (family Labridae).