Finally made it out fishing the past weekend. Got in the reds pretty good took 2 home released the rest. Noticed while cleaning the fish that they had these parasites on them would have released them if I would have saw these before putting them in the cooler. Can anybody give me some information on them. I have searched all over and couldn’t find much about. Searched the fillets over and didn’t see anything in them. Thanks in advance for the help!
Parasitic copepods. Like most parasites they don’t do a lot of damage to the fishes health,not a good survival strategy to kill your host. Interestingly early fish tag manufacturers modeled spaghetti and T bar tag design after these organisms.
yep, nothing wrong with eating those fish. if releasing, I typically pull them off as quickly as I can. the dangly parts are the reproductive elements of the organism- they reproduce in the winter, which is when you see them because they are big and obvious.
cue PeaPod/DF/Bonzo because I said “dangly parts”
Thanks everybody for the input. I went ahead and filled the fish but froze them yesterday because I wanted to make sure that it was ok to eat. Better to be safe then sorry.
I caught some with those and thought it was old damage because the fish were beat up pretty good. Would of ripped them off had I known. Good to know info.
quote:
Originally posted by barbawangcue PeaPod/DF/Bonzo because I said “dangly parts”
giggle, giggle
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40", they definitely are more numerous on the already “beat up” fish that are missing scales, have torn fins, and lots of other nice attachment points for freeloaders… whether there’s a tipping point in parasite load that causes them to succumb to it or not is open to debate- as hungryneck pointed out, an individual parasite does its job by not killing its host… but sometimes too much of a good thing can lead downhill fast.
Hateful
I WAS going to say something but I sure as heck ain’t now!
“Apathy is the Glove into Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”, but really, who cares?
I call those sea lice, if I notice any I just pull the off. They are not harmful to humans and the ones that upon don’t see will most likely come off when you clean the fish because they are just stuck on the fishes scales ands scrim, not the filets.
Evant T.