Trial Lake Red Shiner Tapeworms

[fryman1]

Ok this is pretty gross.  I was having a nice Daddy Daughter date up at Trial lake.  We stopped in Francis at the Frontier Cafe which advertises the "Best Burger".  It was pretty dang good.  One of those hand made thick patties pretty close to a half pound.  Then we headed up to Trial lake.  I usually start out by catching the 3-4 inch shiners in the rocks by the dam.  They are plentiful.  Just a tiny hook with any bait and the whole school is on it like Blue Bonnett.  So I had broke the neck on a couple of those little shiners I caught and had them sitting on the rock next to me and ready to start making some small cut bait I put on a size 6 circle hook to throw out to the big tigers up there. Well there used to be big tigers in there.  This method has worked well in the past. Well I noticed this white stuff coming out their butts.  Ok I was not too worried, as it looks like some intestine coming out. I proceeded to cut off some tail meat and threw that out for the tigers.  Then I looked back at my shiners on the rock and now the white stuff is out about 5 inches.  I grabbed the end and started pulling and the whole thing came out at about 10 inches. Ok now my girl is getting weasy.  I set it on the rock and it started moving.  Oh my @#$%^&*().  My daughter was so grossed out.  Then the other one crawled out of the other fish on its own.  What is going on?  I know about anasakis in the ocean fish and the round worm in trout but these are big thick tape worm. Nasty!  My day  job is in food safety and we require Sushi facilities to use freezing fish at low temperatures for a certain amount of time for parasite destruction. 

I said to my daughter lets cut off a chunk of this and use it for bait. Well she was kind of gagging.  This flesh was pretty firm and stayed on the hook good.  I tossed it out under a bobber with sinker and size 12 bait hook.  Whammo!  A little skinny planter rainbow loved it.   I looked up this type tapeworm on the web today and found this info.
Red Shiner Disease:  https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factshee...ciesID=518

The introduction of Red Shiner into Utah was probably how the Asian tapeworm entered the Virgin River; subsequent tapeworm infestation of Woundfin may be primarily responsible for the Woundfin's decline during the 1980s (Deacon 1988). The Red Shiner is one of the species that potentially introduced the Asian fish tapeworm (Bothriocephalus acheilognathi) to the Lower Colorado River (Choudhury et al. 2004).

Introduced Red Shiner populations have contributed to the reduction of many fish populations and are known to dominate fish assemblages. For example, the introduced Redside Shiner (Richardsonius balteatus) declined when the Red Shiner became common in the Green River near the boundary of Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, in 1971 (Holden and Stalnaker 1975). In degraded streams in Georgia, introduced Red Shiners have become one of the most abundant species (Devivo and Freeman 1995). In a 1985-88 study of the Colorado and Green Rivers adjacent to Canyonlands National Park, introduced Red Shiners made up nearly 50% of the catch per unit effort (Valdez and Williams 1993).



So do you think DWR would be interested in knowing about this, because now it could hit the Provo River, Jordanelle, Deer Creek, Utah Lake and the Jordan River. Any way if you want some different bait it is available at Trial lake as a 2 for one.  You get a shiner and a big tapeworm. 

Fishing report- We caught all very skinny tigers, rainbows and brook. Wondering if they are full of this tapeworm.  I tossed them all back. I recommend thorough cooking of the fish out of there and probably proper hand washing.  Sorry I did not get a better picture. This was taken with my daughters phone and the shiner was a little dried up and at a bad angle. Should have made a video. 

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After researching more pictures it does not look like these are asian tape worm. They look more like Ligula intestinalis.

[Kent]

I can see why your daughter was queasy.

[Tin-Can]

That's alot of "worm" inside just one small shiner.  They look almost like some of the plastic commercial worms on the market. 

Would using them for bait in other waters create a possible introduction in waters they may not already be found in ? 
Just curious.  

[Kent]

That's alot of "worm" inside just one small shiner.  They look almost like some of the plastic commercial worms on the market. 

Would using them for bait in other waters create a possible introduction in waters they may not already be found in ? 
Just curious.  

Certainly if one happened to be released alive into the water.

[300win]

That is plain gross. I might give up eating fish. Yuck.