As a part of my culling phase I've been cleaning quite a few BG and came across this one. Fortunately I've seen this in only a few but this one was pretty bad. Some were on the outside, some were imbedded in the flesh.



But I've also seen it in the gills of a few LMB, like this one:



I saw no indication on the outside of the BG such as spots, sores, etc.

I'm assuming this is some type of parasite or worm?

Yellow grubs. Do search in images for "yellow grub in fish".

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=yel...h&FORM=IGRE



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinostomum_marginatum


http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10364_52259_10950-26966--,00.html

Eric: Will Red Eared Sunfish generally help control them as they do other parasites ?

Yes RES will help. Anything that disrupts the cycle (see links above) will help.

According to what I read, that fillet would be safe to eat when cooked.

Showed it to my wife and she said she would throw it away anyway, even if it was safe to eat.

If anyone ever watches that Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman and sees the stuff he eats..................... well I would throw away a lot of that food too.

Guess if I was hungry enough...............

I've seen that in many fish up here in our lakes (MN) I am fairly new to the site. If I remember right RES can't handle our winter temps but Pumpkin Seed Sunfish (PS) will help control snails and parasites?

syre9801, one thing I've learned on this forum is that everything you've read in the past or have been told in the past can be right or can be wrong. Folklore and 'we always did it this way' has gone by the wayside in the hands of the leading edge pond bosses on this site.

If you have access to PS sunfish and want to go with those you probably can't go wrong. Certainly most of the lakes I have fished or seen fished in northern MI at about the same latitude as you have pumpkinseeds.

But on the other hand, if you have access to RES for stocking or can get some, why not try your hand? RES have advantages over pumpkinseed and why not see if they survive in your pond? Research on RES in northern ponds is very lacking. There are some SW MI lakes that had RES planted as an official DNR experiment and they did OK, although I can't find any updates on how they are doing now several years later.

I know the RES in my pond (latitude 43 vs yours at 45) did fine over the past 2 winters. Both winters had complete ice coverage the entire winter and no aeration and my pond is small (.2 acres) and not very deep (8 feet, maybe less by spring with some natural water loss under the ice)

If you had shallow water aeration to keep a spot open in the shallows you may have no winter kill problem at all. Strategies I learned on this forum for ponds with no aeration in the winter (like mine where we want to skate and not have areas of thin ice) are to keep the pond uncovered of snow or at least a portion of it uncovered to allow sunlight through to the vegetation.

Our pond has zero vegetation and somehow the fish survived.

Give it a whirl!

That is correct. PS like RES will eat snails just not quite as efficient.