fin

[WayneChristie]

caught this one Saturday, looks like someone was having a bite to eat too.
http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/yy156/rollinghillbilly/DSCF7534.jpg

[nevercatchmuch]

yuck

[BBJTKLE&FISHINGADVENTURES]

Thats screwed up , not even sure what would cause that other then something Tareing them off .

[tonyflyfish]

maybe those are rug burns-i mean sand burns

[Cal]

When I was a kid we used to catch some out of N Wabasca lake that looked like that, my grandfather said that they wore them off during the spawn while making spawning beds in the sand or gravel. Not sure if pike even make spawning beds though and I'm pretty sure they spawn in weeds. I've seen aquarium fish lose their fins to diseases though.

One of the crazyest things I've ever seen though was a Pike that I caught out of Coal lake that was MISSING the same fins that you have pictured there. As in never had them, there was absolutely no mark or anything to lead one to beleive the fins were ever there. I didnt realise this untill I got the fish home so I put it in the freezer and called F&W with my amazing discovery. They didnt seem all that interested in it so I ended up eating it.

[Geezle]

Ouch!

Judging by the bits that are left behind it seems like some sort of abrasion...like they were worn off, not ripped off.

It's too bad there's no way to know what happened there...this has me quite curious!

[Cal]

I wonder if its possible he had some kind of parasite on him and the damaged fins are a result of rubbing on the bottom to try and rid himself of it.

[WayneChristie]

Im not sure about the rubbing parasites off thought, you would think it would have parasites in more than just the one pair. I have my suspicions a big pike tried to grab it from below maybe and hit the same two fins, maybe it rubbed the leftovers off? I find lots on there with bite marks on them.

[Cal]

I'm thinking the parasites were not actualy on the fins but on the fish itself, the fish just happened to scrub its fins off while trying to get the parasites off its belly. I've also once in awhile seen pike chase minnows up into very shallow water and trap them against the shore, depending on what the bottom is like I suppose they could damage their fins doing that. The idea of them getting stripped off by a larger pike seems a little fantastic to me. Not cause I dont think a big pike would take a swipe at that guy but because the chances of a large pike completely missing the body but somehow managaing to take both fins clean off seem very slim to me. But I guess stranger things have happened.