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I was wonder if the Coho down south have parasites under the skin and puss balls inside the meat. The parasites under the skin you can see, but the puss balls inside you can't see until you kill the fish. Too bad because there is no way you would want to eat this fish when you see the puss balls. And this year I noticed most of the Coho's were not very spunky, more like dead logs. And we hardly had any Northerns. Most of the fish were very small around 8lb. The biggest Coho so far is 20lb. Marianne
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I haven't been fishing much for coho yet this year but I can tell you that last year I caught fish that were as you describe. Not many, but some. I have also noticed that over the past 5-6 years the coho seem to be getting smaller and thinner. Many of the bellies of Vedder River fish are becoming typically very thin walled, forming loose, flappy pieces of skin when the fish is eviscerated. I remember cutting open fish in the past and the bellies were thick (1-1.5 cm) and muscular. A couple of fish that I have caught looked really good externally, but came in like wet socks on the end of the line. When I cut them open there was a milky-white liquid inside the body cavity that came rushing out. It looked like the liquid was filled with tiny nematode worms. In addition, more and more of the coho and sockeye I have seen exhibit small pustules under the scales and open lesions around the fins. This suggests to me that these fish may have been exposed to some disease or parasite. It is interesting that you are observing "sick" fish in the north as well. One has to wonder why diseased fish are showing up in our river more frequently. Is there some kind of environmental shift (i.e. higher water temperatures, decreasing food supply, etc...) causing stress in these fish so that natural fish pathogens that would normally not harm fish are being expressed? Are these fish being infected by diseases from farmed fish as they swim past fish farms? Is it a combination of these factors. It is something I am looking into at this very moment.
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