Had a great day fishing Sagehen today, 30+ fish day - most in the 10-12 inch range, but several in the 14-16 in range as well. The proverbial low water shooting fish in a barrel day, but still a lot of fun. A lot of the fish in the 10-12 range seemed to have some parasite that was just below the skin causing pimple like eruptions. I released all my fish, but some bank fishermen were taking their limits home. Just curious if anyone knows what the parasite is and is it harmful to the fish consumer? The picture with the fish against my waders was the best I could get of the skin eruptions.
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It is really hard to tell from your pictures, but I don't think I have seen anything like that.
All the parasites that I have seen are in the meat.
Windriver
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From my understanding it is the larval stage of the flatworm parasite that causes swimmers (duck) itch. When the water warms the larva leave the snails and are looking for a new host - ducks. They mistakenly infect other animals and fish but soon die off. This should go away with the cooling temperatures. They claim there is no harm eating the fish unless there are infections (black spots in the meat) caused by the parasite. I choose not to eat them myself.
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Thanks for the information! Based upon what you stated, I did a little looking and found this info on the swimmers itch parasite: [url "http://www.jandjaquafarms.com/swimitch.htm"]http://www.jandjaquafarms.com/swimitch.htm[/url] and from the description I think that is what the fish had. Looked like little yellow cysts, sometimes black, just under the skin. Good to know that they dont harm people if eaten, but just the looks of them were enough to make me put the fish back into the water! I guess they infect the birds however, so my fishing partner in the tree was probably infected.
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