“Caught my first ever orange smallmouth. I am not making this up,” he says in a Facebook video. “This thing isn’t like kind of orange. It’s like neon, goldfish orange.”
The fish is so wildly orange that the distinctive vertical bars common to smallmouth are indiscernible.
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Chrenko says he may have a replica mount made of his bright orange smallmouth to remember the catch of a lifetime.
“Being neon orange would make for a tough life as a small freshwater fish where pretty much everything is earth tones,” Chrenko said on Facebook. “For someone who lives and breathes fishing for smallmouth, this is one I’ll remember my entire life.”
Other Examples of Brightly Colored Fish
In the last year, at least two other xanthic fish have shown up on social media. One was a golden-hued bluegill caught by Terry Nelson while ice fishing on Lindstrom Lake in Minnesota. Remarkably, ice angler Rick Konakowitz caught a similarly colored golden crappie on Clear Lake, Minnesota in February 2022.
Also, during the spring of 2021, Josh Rogers caught a golden largemouth bass while fishing Beaver Lake in Arkansas.