Rock bass

Stout and heavy in comparison to the sunfishes and crappies, the rock bass has red eyes and brassy flanks with black spots. A large rock bass measures about 10 inches and weighs about a pound.

The rock bass spawns in the spring, when the water temperature ranges from the high 60s into the 70s. The male fans out a nest in coarse sand or gravel and guards the eggs and fry. It lives in many lakes and streams in Minnesota, generally preferring well-oxygenated, hard water walleye lakes and walleye- centrarchid lakes and the creeks associated with them. The rock bass prefers boulder and sand bottoms. It eats small fish, insects, crayfish and other invertebrates.

Rock bass require little management other than the protection of its habitat from pollution and other environmental degradation.