Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Show off your catch What happened to this Smallmouth?

I was just at the pond looking things over and spotted a fish near the surface that looked odd. Upon closer look, the tag told me it was one of the Smallmouth I stocked about 8 weeks ago. It was very healthy at the time. Now, he has turned black on the last third or so. What caused this? Has anyone seen it before? No fungus or anything seemed wrong other than it's black and it did not appear bothered by me and I got very close to take the picture.

Nerve damage. Fish likely got dinged up.

I see a couple cases of that at least every year. Sometimes fish can recover which causes nervous system to restore normal coloration. The color changing capacity of sunfishes is generally much greater than what the brain / nervous system commands it to do.

Thanks Jim. Is it possible that I "hit a nerve" tagging this one? If it's only a nerve, can it survive or will it most likely die?

I have had Bluegill successfully breed when like that and live for at least several months although I would loose track of most under the ice. Indoors where I see it the most, none of the fish live past eight months because already slated to be terminated. Siblings normal. Last round we had several pop up after handling fish and grading intensively. The color pattern is easy to see on light background but can be hard when same fish moved to a dark background.