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I have been feeding my LMB since late spring and watching them grow nicely. I noticed one bass of about 4 lbs. showing a round protrusion from his stomach area. I assumed he had swallowed something that he was having trouble digesting or passing. He was eating everyday right along with the other bass and appeared pretty normal except for spending more time resting in the shallows than the other bass, a little less aggressive when feeding, and what I call "showing his side" more than the other bass.
Today I found him dead at the edge of the pond. When I did an autopsy I was absolutely stunned that his stomach was one large solid mass of material - no typical thin lining with food inside. There was no way that any of the pellets he was eating could ever penetrate this mass.
So if the experts could lean in here and tell me what caused this it would be greatly appreciated. In years of cutting open dead fish to examine what might have killed them, I have never seen anything like this. And how did he live all this time without starving to death sooner (my presumption what killed him).
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