Leech like Parasite?

[Lunker]

I was out fishing tonight on a small metro lake, doing well on the smaller bass(numbers lake) with senkos(watermelon or white rigged wacky or weightless texas) on the deeper weedlines of pads and milfoil(8-12 ft). Anyways, I kind of half noticed a little black thing in a few of their throats until I finally realized it was there on a lot of the fish and I took closer inspection. It was a small leech or leech like parasite on the roofs of their throats. On one of the fish, I removed it with the tip of my hook. It was about the length from my hook tip to my barb(about a centimeter?) and about as thick. It also seemed to create a small sore around it's head on the fish, but nothing really bad. I have never witnessed, or at least never really noticed this type of thing before, and I was wondering if anyone knew about this particular creature? It didn't look as though it was hurting the fish or anything, but of course only the inefficient parasites do that to their host, I'm just curious as to what it is.

[ZOKU]

Weird. I'm definitely gonna look for it when I go out tomorrow morning... assuming, of course, I catch fish. Have you noticed the parasite on any other lake?

[Lunker]

I haven't, although it probably wouldn't be too hard to not notice it, especially with a bigger fish.m I'm definitley going to look for it on other lakes now though.

[SCUMFROG]

That's my ex-wife. The blood sucking leech.

[Oldtyme]

Today I went out & found the exact same thing you (I guess) you were talking about. They were little black things I'd say less then 1/4 inch long attached in the mouths of the fish.

I caught like six 12inchers & I think at least four of them had them.

Does anyone have any more info on these? The fish all seemed OK (except for that small hole in the lip )

[Lunker]

The fish I caught with them were all about that size too

[smallie_hawgin]

Hey lunker...

The critters you saw are common on a variety of fish. They are more than likely small gill flukes or leeches. As long as they are not found in rediculous numbers they are rarely an issue on fish. We get to see them all the time on catfish, snapping turtles etc. Good observation though. Hope this helps.

[Lunker]

Thanks. Now that I think about it I caught a catfish over in WI that had similar things on the skin on the exterior of the fish, but I hadn't seen them in the mouths.

[EBass]

I thought they were blood suckers to. I pick em off if I can with the pliers. Poor lil basses