When you catch a fish in the Salmon River NY and it has something "funky" on it, not to worry, it will clear up once the fish gets back to Lake Ontario New York. I emailed Fran Verdoliva at the Salmon River NY Fish Hatchery in Altmar, NY and this is what he had to say:
Looks like Furunculosis. Caused by the bacterium "Aeromonas salmonicida". Brown trout and Atlantic salmon are seriously affected during times of adverse environmental conditions, such as high water temperatures for the species and low oxygen levels. {US Fish & Wildlife "Diseases of Hatchery Fish" ] All salmonid species can get this and other non salmonid, non game fish species. You see it a lot in
suckers. When fish like brown trout enter the river, many of which came in last summer and fall, are subjected to warmer water, then go into spawning which is an added stress, plus banging around on rocks, fighting etc. they become susceptible to this disease. In NY this disease was a problem with hatchery brown trout. A strain of brown trout was developed at the Rome hatchery that is more resistant to this disease. That is why we do not collect brown trout that enter the S.R. hatchery and spawn them. All our brown trout that we raise at S.R. come from our Rome hatchery where the resistant strain was developed. Even though the returning fish to the Salmon River were from that strain we do not want to chance establishing the disease since as you can see it still exists to some degree in the population. I have seen brown trout so severely covered with this fungus that you wouldn't believe that they could survive. But given time to recover by being in colder water temps., getting back to feeding, returning to the lake, they can and will recover. I would guess by the picture that the fish is back on the mend.
Dawn,
Maybe a change of opinion. I think that what is on the brown trout is Saprolegnia. It is easily recognized as white cottony patches of long ,thin non septate filaments or hyphae. It is a unbiquitous water mold that grows on dead organic material. [same reference source,USFWS] Saprolegnia infestations on fish often indicate traumatic injury or lesions from parasites or bacterial infections. So probably the same conditions I mentioned in the first e-mail spawning stress, banging on rocks, fighting, etc caused this. Same response in that it looks like the fish is on the mend an would probably recover by being back on the feed, returning to the lake etc.
Fran
Jake from N.J. had this to say/add:
Dawn the white cottony patch on the fishes head is a bacterial fungus similar to flexobacter. Its is probably not an un common bacteria with the amount of carcasses in the river and the lower river levels. As I. stated in my last email I caught a very large steelhead up top who too had a white fungus also it seemed it took a severe head wound hitting a rock in a struggle. It was also plagued with a cloudy eye most likely because its compromised immunity system and poorer than normal water conditions. Your guess is as good as mine. On a good note we did catch 8 other very healthy Salmon River NY Steelhead on 2-23-11.
If you have photos of fish with this fungus, send them in. While I'm not sure if they're safe to eat, I certainly wouldn't want to eat one that had the fungus on it, would you? So, best thing to do is release the fish and hope that it gets back to Lake Ontario New York safely where it can heal up and return the following fall bigger and fatter!!! Good Fishing, Dawn A. Rucando
