Rare orange bass was catch of a lifetime for angler. ‘I didn’t even know they existed’

Knowing some people might think a photograph was altered via Photoshop, Josh Chrenko recorded a video to document his rare catch in Michigan.

“Caught my first ever orange smallmouth. I am not making this up,” he said in the video before holding up the fish. “This thing isn’t like kind of orange. It’s like neon, goldfish orange.”

Chrenko, who lives in Indiana, traveled up to the Muskegon River in Newaygo, Michigan, where he reeled in the rare fish earlier in July. He said in a Facebook post he didn’t even know orange smallmouth bass existed.

The catch was special for Chrenko, he told WXMI, because he has dedicated his hobby life to smallmouth bass.

“For someone that lives and breathes fishing for smallmouth, this is one I’ll remember my entire life,” he said on Facebook.

So why is the fish orange? Chrenko talked to an Indiana ecologist, who told him the color of the fish means it has a condition called Xanthochromism, according to Premier Angler.

Xanthochromism causes the pigmentation of the fish to be “unusually yellow.” Chrenko said it’s likely the bass he caught overcame “crazy odds to survive the first couple years of his life.”

A chance of a fish even being born with the condition is about 1-in-10,000, a friend told Chrenko, Premier Angler reported.

“Being neon orange would make for a tough life as a small freshwater fish where pretty much everything is earth tones,” he said on Facebook.

Chrenko posted a second video on Facebook, showing him toss the fish back into the river after it was documented.

This story was originally published July 21, 2022 at 3:51 PM with the headline "Rare orange bass was catch of a lifetime for angler. ‘I didn’t even know they existed’."