A Fluke

Fishing fever generally sets in during the winter. I think this is true for every honest fisherman and the women too who fish. I think it's true for the dishonest too, who fish. When we've had just about enough snow to start our own ski resort, that's when it happens. It just comes on you. Symptoms are a far away look, drifting thoughts, twitching in the fingers, and even rod rage.

About the only way one can handle this disease is to get out into the outdoors and approach some sort of water with life in it. I did that just this day. But because I didn't have a license yet and because I'm on the honest side of the pendulum, I took my dog instead of a fishing rod.

I drove out to Cocollala Lake south of Sandpoint (North Idaho) to see what I could see. I'd spotted people fishing the ice there on many occasions and new I'd likely find someone wrestling with the same fever; so that's where I went.

Don't worry, I was armed with a long-haired Chihuaha named Bijou. He's a bird, lap, huntin', walkin' dog and you wouldn't want to approach my pickup if I left him in there for some reason.

We dropped down over the embankment, slid down an icy snow path to the lake shore and walked out to three unsuspecting but quite accommodating sportsman who suffered much the same as me.

They were catching perch as Bijou and I neared them and one of the men had a couple of pan-sized trout in his bucket. But they were releasing the perch. That seemed unusual so as they warmed up to me, I asked why. The first one I saw up close had black spots on its belly so I asked about that and the man told me it was Black Spot, marks left by a parasite that enters a fish through its skin and later becomes a flatworm.

I stayed for quite a while. The fact is I made friends with these three men. I took some photographs and they gave me a couple of the perch to take home. Not that I wanted to eat the flesh of wormed fish, but because I wanted to dissect them and see for myself what kind of damage the worms did.

I photographed the flesh and looked through the semi-transparent meat for worms but found none. You can see a black spot in the background on the inside of the filleted skin. But there were no worms or parasitic eggs or larva that I could detect visible in or on any of the meat or skin. The flesh looked okay to me, though I wasn't yet confident about eating it.

I learned several things worth noting. First, according to every source I looked into, if the fish were cooked properly, the larva or worms in any stage would die in the heat. So it appeared safe to eat them. The flat worm in adult stage is called a fluke. In this case, Black Spot Fluke is a liver flatworm. Once I learned that, I opened up the second fish and checked it's liver. Sure enough, the liver did not look healthy and I believe that yellow portion lying on the knife blade is the culprit that did the damage. This fish's liver was seriously damaged, not firm at all.

Secondly, I learned there were varieties of the same called Yellow Spot and White Spot usually seen on the liver of an opened fish. The black spots on this perch are the repair marks where the perch's immune system patched up the microsoopic entry point of entering larvae. Flatworms, like tapeworms, I found have an amazingly complex life cycle.

Who knows what's out there? I fished for half my life not realizing any of this. But I'm clear now, I won't make sushi from freshwater fish, especially if I find marks on the skin such as those you see on the perch above.

That's my first entry. Come back for recipes, tales and some true adventure. I'll even teach a few fly-tying lessons as time goes by. Aaah! I feel better already! I guess I broke the ice on this thing called fishing fever.