Mysterious moving white dots????/

[ricqik]

The past 2yrs while fishing for sunfishes I've noticed that every sunfish I gutted had little white ovel-ish dots inside the body. They are mostly on that clump of dark red flesh looking thing against the spinal(I think it's the splean or something), some on the heart too. Some of the sunfish's heart are partially white like flesh color and doesn't have the normal shape of the heart. Kind of like a cancered lung. I know it's not white blood cells. These things move, not move here to there but you see it moving in it's place. It does not appear in other fishes I've caught, only in sunfishes(bluegills and pumpkinseeds).
I ended up wasting the remaining sunfishes that I haven't cooked and comsumed. I've since to keep any sunfish for consumption. Should I be worried about this? Does anybody know what it is? Is it normal in sunfishes?

Anyone who catches the next sunny and decides to keep it, can you check for this? You would really have to pay very close attention to see it moving.

The following lake are where I have hept sunfishes from: Phalen, Elmo, Minnetonka, White Bear, and Little Long.

[Dano2]

hmmmm, weird, sounds like worms to me,
but I'm not sure.

[CrappieJohn]

This sounds like something specific to warm water bodies and the lack of current. If these fish have black spots IN the skin, the have been infested with a harmless fluke type of roundworm. Look closely at the gills when you take these fish off the hook and see if you can find any yellowish balls on them...if so, that is the adult stage of the worm and the rest of the fish is full of them. The worms are harmless to humans when the fish is thoroughly cooked, but sorry dude, this boy doesn't need to vary the protien intake of my diet by eating wormy fish. Try changing your fishing to waters that flow and avoid very dead, quiet water that gets really warm in the summer months. If it is not this sort of infestaion, I cannot help...good luck! Crapster

[ricqik]

I'm definately sure it's not worms. These dots are all the same size in all the sunfishes at anytime of the year. I thought about sending some samples in but don't know who or where to send it to. These dots are about the size of this > . < .

[ricqik]

After asking numerous anglers who have kept sunfishes, they all have seen these dots. It appears to be a parasite common to sunfishes. Said to be harmless when well clean and well cooked. Hmmmm????