Infected bluegills???

This last weekend tried a little panfishing. We caught alot of bluegills but it seemed half of the larger ones had what looked like red lesions covering half their body. I’ve caught bluegills before with maybe a few red marks on them but nothing like this and definitely not as many as we did that day. We were fishing a beaver house. Has anybody else expierienced this? I have talked to someone who told me he filleted a bluegill as I described and it was full of white grubs in the meat.

eat the grubs up it puts hair on your chest and builds character

The only time I’ve ever seen anything like that was during spawn. There was a thread a while back talking about how ‘gills will spawn several times each year if conditions are right. Could it be that the warm fall (up until now) has them feeling a little… well… randy?

You’re right, I caught one like that in Guttenberg a month ago. Also, the owner of the bait shop in town said she had several reports of people coming in and talking about red spots on the gills of bluegills about a month ago. Maybe its bacteria from when there is a couple of hot days? Dunno. I didn’t even touch the one I caught, shook the hook free, didn’t look like no hickies from spawning to me.

Dubiccf, maybe it’s a Pool 11 thing, the ones I caught came from the Bertam Lake area on Pool 11. Since my original posting I’ve talked to a few others who have also noticed the red spots or should I say red rash. Hopefully they’ll be cleared up by winter and won’t kill the fish.

hey birdman,, ur right,, i have been fishing pool 4 and 1 out of 12 or so have those red dots on them,,, i was talking to a older guy that has been fishing for years and he just said that they were worms,,, everyone i saw him catch with those dots went right back into the water,,, i Found that the ones with dots tended to b the biggers ones,, so who knows,,,