The history of bass?

[Slyster]

Does anyone know the history of bass? Where were bass found originally?... like 1000 years ago before ANY human stocking and other artificial interventions.

Where they found in just one small part of the world and only spread in the last few hundred years by the hands of man?

I remember catching a northern pike in Norway once and wondering the same thing. These fish cannot MIGRATE like birds.. so how did they get around before stocking etc. I wonder where pike are originally from too!

[Deitz Dittrich]

as far as I know... bass are native to our waters... I could be way wrong on this though.

[BK19]

both large and smallmouth bass are native to minnesota

[TurnUpTheFishing]

I thought I have read that smallies were brought from lakes out east when railroads began finding there way west.

[bassNspear]

 Originally Posted By: BK19

both large and smallmouth bass are native to minnesota

this is correct!!

[Slyster]

BUT... in just ONE lake? (I am talking before man ever set foot in North America)... seems they couldn't get around to TOO many lakes unless the lakes were connected by rivers or during flooding years... that might make their nature origins just one PART of one state?

[TurnUpTheFishing]

I got curious and checked around the net (im bored)...

According to Wikipedia smallmouth bass were originally found out east and their range spread after the creation of the erie canal and with the railroads. I couldnt find anything more specific.

It appeares largemouth's original range was found many places east of the Rockies but not in Michigan's upper penisula or southern shores of lake superior. Also, The Florida strain was originaly found in Florida's main penisula. This is the fish many of the southern lake now have due to stocking.

I dont know if you'll ever get an answer as specific as your looking for (before man). Not sure how they could figure something like that out.

[slipperybob]

It depends on how the lakes are formed.

We have those deep carved glacial lakes and those water flood filled basin lakes. So I would supposed that the migration route would depend on that.