Largemouth Bass / Black Basu

2011/02/022020/11/25

Black Basu [jp] / Largemouth Bass (Northern Bass)
Micropterus salmoides (Lacepede, 1802)

Initially imported from North America along with smallmouth bass by famous early day lure angler, Tetsuma Akaboshi, nephew of "Baron" Nagsawa, graduated from University of Pennsylvania, and his brothers known for introducing golf to Japan. Largemouth bass was stocked in Lake Ashino in 1925 under the government approval. Akagi continued to stock bass in additional locations, and then additional stocking was conducted under the guidance of General Head Quarter as leisure program after the World War II.

It soon gained high popularity among freshwater sport anglers in Japan, but then downside of bass attacking Japan's native species alerted the policies of both commercial fishing industries and wild life preservation community of local governments. There have been races between local prohibitions and recreational stocking by private company for decades, then in 2004, Parliament passed "The Law on Protection against the Damage Related to the Eco System Formed by Specific Alien Species" which banned the transportation of invasive species including all sunfish, in this case, bass and bluegill. You can fish for them and release back where you caught them (or kill it depending on the regulation), but you cannot keep them for re-stocking or recreation, because you "transport" the fish in order to do so.

http://www.env.go.jp/nature/intro/4document/law.html

Today, habitat is spread nation wide. You could find bass water from reservoirs to small pond in the city.

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