Rot gut

[cheferson]

I caught a high teen bass last week. Bass put up a hell of a fight. When i got here in i noticed a whole in its stomache. The fish had a 3-4 " hole in its stomache!! I could see its intestines! Swam away fine. Anyone else ever seen this??

[JohnR]

Did it look like it was damaged in a battle of sorts? Or did it look like a large sore?

[cheferson]

Was healed for the most part, around the hole , not really a sore.

[parker23]

That is very disturbing. I have yet to catch a bass w/ any signs of Mico in 2007... I have noticed over the years that fish under 30" have been the only population w/any sort of skin lesions. I have yet to land a bass of keeper size w/ any skin/internal malady.

In 1991 I started catching small fish in very warm water that had skin lesions. A group of us from Swansea, Ma sent pictures/samples to a fisheries biologist working w/the state. Never rec’d any feedback from our findings. During the early 90’s I had a friend that was in the upper level of management at Brayton Pt. Power plant. 3-5 times per winter, starting January 1st a group of fly fishers had fishing access to the upper section of the cooling canal. We noticed a very high percentage of fish w/ some sort of skin rot. Again, we contacted the aforementioned parties to no avail.

I hope these recent finding are not a hint of a growing problem w/larger bass. I figured that small fish w/ the disease died before reaching the 30” range. This too is alarming, if the juvinile bass die before reaching spawning age.

I guess we will have the answers as the seasons unfold.