Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Bass spine curvature?

Catch one or 2 a year from the same pond. Spine has a huge curve vertically. They have an obvious humpback and their stomach looks sucken in.
Top one in pic is normal, bottom the curved. Anyone know anything about this? What it is or what causes it?

Attachments

I'm considering not using my floy tag gun anymore and switching to Pit tags. I've caught 2 LMB previously tagged (one was tagged over a year ago and has been caught 3 times) that have infection around the tag.

There are a couple of other PB members that use the pit tagging system below. Purchased on Amazon and have had good results so far. They are not as cost effective as the floy tags but could save losing a trophy fish due to infection.

Attachments

At this point, I think you probably need to remove the bell tower in your pond cathedral.

Our State scientists say it is naturally occurring in most populations.
I had one of our hatchery techs tell me they had a batch of smb in one year class that had several of these with scoliosis, but honestly, they cannot tie it to in-breeding. I'm told it's something that occurs during cellular growth while still in the egg.
I've been told-doesn't mean it's absolute-that it is not a genetic issue.

That is a nice pile of fillets!

Thats going to make a funny looking fish sandwich. Do they even make crooked bread slices?

Lol, after the teen checkout smashes the bread into sack at the store, my kids set stuff on it in the pantry, and it falls a few times... I get all.sizes and shapes of bread! Surely a couple slices will match.

Lots of nice fillets from that outing!

If you are catching 1 or 2 'hump-back' bass like that a year (and you're sure it's not the same fish), then I would think you've somehow ended up with some kind of bass breeding that amplifies that spine condition.

If you like LMB, then adding in some new LMB to add to the gene pool is generally a good idea. Now, if you had some kind of very unique and awesome situation going on in your pond, adding new LMB may not be the right move.

And I thought my "dad jokes" on the forum were bad!

I just looked those microchip readers up and they're much cheaper than I expected. Might be worth a go.

Great info Learnin.

I had no idea the chip scanners were down to $30! My kids have rescued two dogs just over the last three 4th of July's. (I assume the dogs were loose due to fireworks terror.) Of course, no vets were open for us to scan for a chip.

I might even be smart enough to use the ID tags on fish in the future!