Ewest...for this fish, the plastics look like the cause, rather than the effect. From the autopsy, the fish was nutritionally deficient. Her organs looked fine, there were no obvious tumors or any lesions. It took a long time for this fish to deteriorate. I suspect it took longer than a year. It had obviously metabolized its flesh. Bone structure was normal. The air bladder was larger than normal, but I think that was an effect, too, rather than a cause.
When I cut the fish's stomach open, there were four plastic baits. One's head, the bait on the right, was beyond the stomach, lodged in the intestine, blocking the fish's digestive system. While the stomach wasn't "full" like it would be had that fish swallowed a one pound bass, it was still pretty tight. And the air bladder took up quite a bit of room in the cavity, too. I think this fish had favored the soft plastics, ate them, and those baits caused the fish to deteriorate.
I don't know if the mass in a fish's stomach sends some kind of "signal" to the brain whether or not to feed, I don't know what it takes for some bass to pass plastics. I don't know why this fish didn't pass these baits. But, it was pretty clear to me that the worms were in different states of decomposition and that they were in there long enough to disrupt this fish's life and digestion enough to allow the creature to go to a Wr of less than 50, and that's fatal.
I called the landowner to find out what kinds of baits these were. I next plan to get in touch with the bait manufacturers and show them the photos, and maybe ship the baits to them, so they can see.
While I don't think one fish is a symptom of a problem, it bothers me enough to pursue more knowledge. I look back on the handful of times I have received client observations about skinny fish, thinking those single incidents were "old fish" and wish I had cut into them, too. This situation is different, because this fish was only 5 years old, max. It was obviously pushing 6 pounds at some point and to drop to 3 or less is just wrong. Had the landowner called me to tell me of a skinny fish in a 10 year old lake, it wouldn't have struck the same nerve. You can bet it will from now on.
As I thought more about it when he first called me on Saturday, I knew I wanted to look at that fish. He sent it in an ice chest with blue ice on Monday, I got it on Tuesday and autopsied it Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. As I studied that fish, the one thing I couldn't get out of my mind is the effort it took to get that creature to 21 inches in 3 or 4 years. And then, for its demise to be caused by artificial baits...that bothered me.
As my thoughts continued to develop, I also knew this fish is an anomaly for this fishery. 35 acres of water, landowner has caught two skinny fish and many, many more that are healthy.
I'm still thinking of the consequences.
