Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Poor looking livers

While doing a necropsy on bass from 30 acre lake in KY we discovered the following livers. http://www.lakework.com/photo_gallery/gallery2/v/random/P1010076.JPG.html
This is how the liver looks in most all other bass
http://www.lakework.com/photo_gallery/ga...010205.JPG.html

What do you think caused the horrible looking livers? We have spots on them from time to time but never this bad of shape. This is not my area of expertise, anyone who might have some insight? I will disclose a little more information a little later, I do not want to biasis any answers. thanks for your thoughts.

Uhhhhhh Greg - are you up to that again??

Moonshine 'stil leak nearby?

Pellet trained LMB?

Too rapid growth from high protien commercial feed?

Tumors from pollutants?

Fatty livers from bass on fatty, calorie enriched diet. Either that, or these bass are on birth control pills.

It doesn't seem to be the protein that is hepatotoxic; if you think about it, bass that eat other fish are on a nearly 100% protein diet, and seem to avoid the liver enlargement. I imagine Aquamax is the equivalent of a 20 oz. ribeye, loaded tater, and a pitcher of suds......certainly does a number on the liver of homo sapiens.

Could the tumors be distended, stone-filled gallbladders? I wasn't sure bass have gallbladders, but wiki says they do.....

Hotdogs?

I have literlly no idea. Ok more info Sue I'm serious I need help on this to explain what is going with his bass.

The First liver is a 11.5 yr old bass,20 inhces and 3.7 lbs, poor shape. I about flipped out when Matt told me. I have never seen an otolith with that many rings, crazy thing is the pond is only 6 years old. Either came in from flooding or got slipped in by someone. So might just be "breaking down" b/c the poor fella was about to die.

2nd liver not as bad but still discolored and spoltchy. He was
19 inches 3.3 lbs and 84 Wr and 7.5 years old, again pretty dang old to only be 19 inches.

Last liver looking bad as well on younger fish
13 inches 0.9 lbs 74 Wr 2.5 years old

This lake is slam full of gizzard shad and low abundance of bass. There were severl bass with over 100 Wr. Howevr I really do not understand the less than stellar health of some of the bass. The shad are in the prefferred size range for most of the skinny bass.

This might help explain things if only I could deterimine why the livers look so poor. Anyone have an idea of an "expert liver examiner". thanks again.

BTW I will not check this for 3 days headed to KY to take my nephew on a youth hunt.

Greg, over feeding can cause a large liver. Very old animals are more likely to have a larger liver. Parasites such as flukes can cause a misshapen liver. I suppose eating caterpillars that eat poisonous plants (or eating many fish that eat them) could cause an enlarged or misshapen liver.

What % of the LMB had problems with their liver ? With no pellet feeding and a shad forage base (great lipid source) for the liver where the lipid fats (like fish oil) needed for healthy fish are stored/processed. Hmmm ? Genetics - 3 different generations and small % of problems?

HEY! Cut it out!

One of the LMBV strains? We do have an 11-1/2 year old and a 7-1/2 year old bass in the sampling that came from a 6 year old pond.

the answer is obvious.

ya need to replace the jack at the bar w/ a quality highland malt scotch.

Pond Boss CSI.

Just when you thought there were enough versions of CSI....

Flukes huh might have to research that. Ewest, we of course did not want to kill too many bass, Sue is that better, so the sampling size for necropsy/aging was only 7. Of those the larger/old bass were the only onse that showed the strange, color, blotchy pattern of the livers.

It may not be related at all, but really do not understnad why about 15% of the bass seem to be well under 100Wr with the forage base he has in the lake.

I thought about LMBV especially since obviously a few bass are in the lake older than the fingelrigns stocked in 2001.

ANyone know of external/internal indicators of LMBV?

Greg, after looking through a half-dozen articles at BassResource.com , I get the idea there aren't a whole lot of external symptoms. Like many diseases, it sounds like LMBV acts as a source of stress that bass may carry and live with for some time with no big problems, until something else (with LMBV, apparently associated with warm weather) combines to make it fatal.

There are over a dozen articles on LMBV at the link above, but mostly they are concerned with the extent of the disease and preventative measures.

Greg, if I did my "googling" right, damage to the swim bladder can be seen internally just before a largemouth dies from LMBV,, otherwise there are few symtoms. It is the loss of equilibruim that causes death.

Here are some other possibilities:

Proteocephalm ambloplitis, a larva tape worm parasite.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1095-8649.1989.tb03397.x

Now some of the new manufactured nanomaterials, fullerenes or "buckeyballs" dissolved in water, have been shown to cause brain and liver damage in LMB as well.

http://nanopedia.case.edu/NWPage.php?page=in.mtp13.007

If it's not viral or parasitic infection then I suspect the liver damage could also come from some sort of chemical contamination as well.

Theo and Shorty thanks!

Greg I did some research and there are a lot of AFS studies on LMBV. Also a bunch on other causes mostly parasitic in nature.