Hi Pondmeisters,
Yesterday I upheld my tradition of fishing and putting fresh fish on the table for the first day of lent. I got a nice little haul of bluegill. While cleaning them I saw something I have never seen. One fish of the 15 I kept and cleaned had what at first I thought was a long, thin, red blood vessel. It stuck to my fingers and I flicked it into the offal bucket with he head guts and scales. It clung to the side of the white plastic bucket. Out of the corner of my I noticed it moved! On looking I found one more. I wonder what these are? Are they anything to be concerned about either for my pond or fish population? I tried to take some pictures because I knew I would be writing this right away but the camera yesterday to fail me. They were about 2 - 4 inches long and as thin as a sharp pencil line. I've cleaned a lot of fish and never seen anything like this, maybe I've been blind to them for the past half century but right now I have a low level of concern and a big case of curious. Thanks for your response.
BTW how does one get that little "I subscribe" logo to put at the end of my posts? I have subscribed for several years but never got one in my welcome aboard. I tried to copy and paste someone elses and I could copy anything else on the page I wanted but not that little fish.

Kru
Powhatan, Va.

They do get parasties in them. They are just like what you described. The introduction of redear sunfish will help this problem out as they eat things like that.

Fish are susceptible to their share of parasites. Here are the two I see the most, at least in Bluegills

Good stuff Spark.

Thanks JLUDWIG and SPRKPKUG for your responses. Do I read between the lines to understand that these are not harmful and it's OK to eat the fish? As a precaution I pulled the fish that had the long red worms. The interesting thing is that I already have RES in the pond but seldom see them. I've not seen the kind pictured and wonder if I would even spot the little white one.
Also does anyone know How I get the little "I subscribe" logo?


Kru

I can't help you with the logo Krudell, but yes, you can still eat the fish as long as it's properly cooked.... no sushi.

The fish in my photos were consumed.

re: Logo

Go to the archives, look on pg. 2. It tells you there how to do it.

Probably some type of round worm, google camallanus and click on images.

http://inkmkr.com/Fish/CamallanusTreatment/

http://lamarck.unl.edu/hwml/pdf-files/bugging-fish4c.pdf