Quote:
Originally Posted by fish99
this fish was a floater after released and the birds were pecking at it until it got ride of its air and went down . we have caught a few like that as well.
and one day going out we seen some birds and thought the lakers pushed bait up and the birds were getting minnows nope they were pecking on a laker and it looked like the picture
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That is not at all what you're seeing in that picture.
While what you're saying does happen, almost every time a fish floats long enough that the gulls get at it, it is guaranteed to not survive.
Sometimes they'll go down if they're merely stunned and not bloated. But if they're floating belly up on the surface and bloated, they can no longer burp themselves . Their demise at that point is almost certain.
Writing off this problem is not what anyone should do.
What you are seeing in that picture is the mark left behind after the parasite has dropped off.
They appear to infect in the early spring and burst out of the skin in the late fall. The survival rate of the fish is unknown.
That fish, while still feeding, does not look healthy at all.
I have dozens of pictures from several specimens, but they are not mine to share. Most much worse than that.
Any infected ones that I have caught had no pictures taken.