Heron Scar?

[FrankTroutAngler]

evw659 wrote:
Im not sure what caused that. i have seen that before, but in each case i noticed a thorn looking thing sticking out of the middle of the scar. i could never figure out what caused it. it appears your fish may have something similar, but its hard to tell. this is a shot in the dark, but could it be a broken talon from a heron that remains stuck after the heron grabs the fish and ends up getting infected?

btw, how did the j fish? im sure it was good, my brother and i fished a small limestone in the vicinity of that area thats normally pretty tough and had one of our best days of fishing since june. water level and visibility were prime.

If you see a "thorn looking thing" sticking out of a wound it is a spine from a smallmouth bass. Usually these wounds are located near the pectoral fin. I see them regularly on streams that have both wild brown trout and smallmouth bass.

For the wound in the photo, my guess is that it is from a water snake. Definitely not a lamprey, great blue heron or kingfisher. Leech is a good guess, too.

 

[FiveWeight]

Ebrant10 wrote:
That is pretty awesome fiveweight, how long ago did you catch it?

I think it was the Friday before Labor Day weekend.

 

[Mike]

If there is something thing "sticking out of the wound," then it is possible that the wound was caused originally by an anchor worm (anchor parasite...look it up), and the original wound became infected.

 

[afishinado]

Mike wrote:
If there is something thing "sticking out of the wound," then it is possible that the wound was caused originally by an anchor worm (anchor parasite...look it up), and the original wound became infected.

Interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaea

 

[osprey]

.22 LR hollow point?