South Fork Browns

[sloppyjoe]

Been up on the Southfork of the Snake a couple time this week. While I was fishing I noticed a few good sized browns either hugging the bank or partially exposed on the bank. These fish are barely breathing and covered with large white nasty looking growths on them. What is up with these fish, and why are they in this condition? I am sure someone here knows what is up.
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[devflyguy]

If it's white growths it's most likely a fungus that occurs while spawning. When the fish spar in preparation for mating they incur sores that tend to get fungus on them when they are in high densities and under certain conditions. When I lived in Utah, there were entire age classes of browns that this happened to on the Provo and it is a yearly problem. It was thought that extra catching/handling of the fish while they are spawning can make it worse through slime removal.
When I was at the South Fork a few weeks ago, I sat down and watched a group of browns on redds and noticed a couple that had some fungus spots on them but none that looked terminal.
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[windriver]

Very interesting stuff.

Thanks

Windriver
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[prontotp]

I also ran into that a couple of weeks ago on the south fork. this fish was already almost dead and barely able to swim. I don't know what it was though.

[sloppyjoe]

It does make sense that it has to do with spawning. and with the supposed high densities of fish that part also makes sense. I have seen fish periodically when fishing the South Fork that had white growths, just never this many.
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[pookiebar]

Sounds like the fungus as mentioned above. One year on the Henry's opening a lot of the cut throat we caught had a similiar fungus on their tails and backs.

The story was that year the lake thawed at the edges early, and I guess the fish were super condensed in those edge areas to spawn. The tight quarters made for a faster spread of the fungus, or so the F& G officer who checked our licenses had told us.
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