Bass in river = scars?

[Axis]

Hi, I am new to the forum, just stumbled upon this bass mecca a few days ago. Lots of great advice and great people here, glad I could join up and be on the team.

I fish a local river about once a week. There are MANY fish here because the lake that it runs into has be lowered greatly in order to raise the water in the near future, therefore a majority of the fish have moved upstream. It is very common to catch 10-12 bass while wading through the river, most 2 lb plus. My question is this, almost EVERY fish I catch has a scar or sickly looking spot on it. I mean 9/10 usually do. They aren't huge jagged gashes or anything, but something that like a bloody dot on the fish. I thought possibly that because there is mainly rock bottoms the fish could get "bruises" that way. Does anyone know what this is a sign of?  Thanks

[bassaddict62]

Wow-that's freaky. Last week a caught a bass missing a huge chunk of it's tail, and the tips of it's fins were jagged and cut too. Maybe I'll Google this to see what's up with this.

[TWP]

the chunk from its tail could be from a predator fish, like a gar or pike or pickeral perhaps? but i catch sum bass sumtimes with those spots. its kinda weird.

[bassdocktor]

I'm not sure either but on Sunday I was fishing a local river and went back into one of the marinas and experienced the same thing. The back half of the fish had a bunch of marks like you described on it. Since I know the water quality where I was fishing is poor, I was wondering if there was some parasite or chemical that left the marks.

[Chris]

Leaches and parasites latch onto the bass and in time the bass get rid of them and whats left is a sore. In the late Fall early Winter you should see less of that. It also could be from poor handling from the fishermen before you that caught the same bass.

[utser]

smallies in the susquehanna had sores on them this summer. pa  fish commission said was due to bacteria caused by water levels being low and water warmed up too much.

[Madhouse27]

I fish the Penobscot River here in Maine and have seen some similar marking on the smallmouth.  Some of them have a pretty big chunk taken out of them. I always assumed that it was from the healthy population of Eagles and Ospreys but I suppose some of the smaller marks could be parasitic in nature. How about otters, could they be putting a hurt on some of the bass? Funny how many times someone posts something on this board that you were just talking about the other day.

[nwgabassmaster]

Utser, not only those things that are wrong, but the Susquehanna River is the most polluted river in the nation right now.  

I catch a lot of fish with "lice" on them.  They look like red little leeches, that are very small.  Normally, if I see a bass with them on there, I will use my thumbnail and scrape them off, and release the bass.

[Matt Fly]

From So. Cal. to Tex. there is a commorant problem,sometimes called water buzzard, this bird dives under for minutes at a time and is a fast underwater swimmer.   This bird, predator of all fish, can eat 1.5lb fish with no problem.  We regularly catch bass with spots, gashes, cuts, punctures and sores.  This year the TPW passed a law allowing commorants to be harvested (killed) protecting our fisheries.  It was about time.  Does SC have these menacies?

[Axis]

Thanks for all the replys guys. I suppose it isn't just an isolated problem like I was thinking. As far as the commorant problem goes, I am really not sure. We have MANY birds but I do not recall seeing any of this nature. Lots of herons etc.

Thanks

[basswest1]

There are many things that brueses or sorres could be.  For example, in the spring many fish have the bottom half of their tails worn to a gnarly looking sore. This comes from the fish actually fanning the bed.  The sores you see are most likely some kind of parasite or even another type of fish like a Lamprey which attatches itself to a fish and actually feeds off of it.

[BigDawgz]

I've seen quite a few fish with different sores/abrasions/growths on them.  Some of these have the large black spots (sun spots?) on them and I've been told that it's from the fish being very shallow and/or it's a sun-related thing.   I caught lots of fish that day and all of the deeper catches (10 ft - 22 ft) didn't have any spots or blemishes on them at all.

I also fish several smaller fisheries (300 acres or less) that are water supplies to local communities.  They treat these lakes (chemically) to keep the water healthy and I've actually seen some fish w/chemical burns/sores on them as well.