Fishing Forum

I've caught a lot of whitefish before but never one that looked like this. It was super bloated, eyes looked like they were about to pop out of its head, its scales were falling off, and weirdest of all, it was bleeding but it didn't have any cuts. I'm just curious if there is a reason anyone knows about. Any ideas?
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How deep was the fish when you hooked it?
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Fishing in around 8 feet of water and it was near the bottom.
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Where was it caught?

Idaho
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Was it full of spawn?
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I didn't think about that. I know they spawn this time of year but I caught few getting ready to spawn last week and they looked fine. I don't know about the eggs though, I threw it back down the hole. I'm not a big whitefish eater.
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On a section of river that freezes over...I'll PM you the name if that helps at all.
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I would guess it was going spawn that night and it's just ready to pop.
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That would make sense. It acted healthy and fought good and was feeding really aggressively. It looked normal on my camera and then I pulled it up and was surprised how strange it looked.
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It looks like its spawning for sure. Often when fish are in the spawn their immune systems are lower, so they are more susceptible to disease, and have a bit more trouble healing. Those may have been factors. A lot of the whitefish I catch this time of year look pretty roughed up. I always assumed it was from the spawn.
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Just a thought to throw in to the mix....if this happens to anyone else...I recommend cutting it open and doing a field autopsy...lol...Two possibilities that I have personally seen myself...I have gutted a trout before that was super bloated to find about 30 airsoft gun bb's lodged in his bowels...obviously compacted in such a way as to not allow them to pass thru...he was in distress to be sure...the bb's were yellow and i can only assume he thought it was corn...now on the corn note...I have read that when we fish with corn you are advised to not throw any unused corn in the water due to the reason that trout eat it but cant digest it...seems odd but thats what ive learned...another possibility is that this fish had ingested a jig or something and the hook was hung up somewhere...the ensuing fight on your line was rough enough to cause it to rip something and draw blood...all I know for sure is that I personally wouldnt have thrown it back...I would have tried to find out the cause of the distress...one would also hope that if any others were caught with this going on F&G should be contaced to see if they wanted the fish to test for chemical agents or some type of infection they should maybe try to combat...anyway...have an awesome day!
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I have also read multiple articles about non-biodegradable soft plastic baits that fisherman throw in the water..or the ones that are lost through normal fishing efforts have been found lodged in fishes stomachs ultimately killing the fish...I try to use berkely gulp or other biodegrabable soft baits to do my part here...Ive seen a lot of guys who trash a plastic bait throw it overboard rather than on the floor to be disposed of later...
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Corn is not digested as well as other feed, but it is used in some hacheries, my understanding is they they just won't grow as fast. So there shouldn't usually be a problem in that regard, I suppose I could see small fingerlings having a problem, but I don't know how likely that is..
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My understanding is Corn like other grains for hatchery use is ground before feeding!
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I have also wondered about corn, but most of the trout I catch are full of snails and I would think they would be harder to digest for the fish than corn.
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