Hi folks,

caught an overwintered stocked Brownie last night. Took it home for dinner. Opened it up to find it absolutely *heaving* with parasites. Looked like at least 2 sorts: hundreds of small (2-3 mm), whip-like and very active worms; and a number of large (1.5cm long, 0.5 cm across), flattened oval things (thinner at one end), white, with obvious body segments.

Any idea what these were (in paritcular the bigger ones), and whether the fish would ve safe to eat after cooking? This time I didn't take the risk and chucked it.

I've come across some odd things inside trout, but these really turned my stomach!

Sad thing was that this was the biggest fish I'd had from this water (though it fought like a wet sock - possibly because it was so heavily parasitised.

were abouts inside was the parasites found.

stomach and intestines etc?

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The little whippy worms were in the intestines/stomach.

I'm not sure where the bigger ones came from - though they seemed to be in the body cavity itself (I only started looking more closely when I saw the first lot of smaller ones).

The fish also had little white, irregular nodules all over its organs.

Morbidly fascinating! It always amazes me just how heavy a parasite load wild animals can sustain.

Really need a picture to see but smaller ones are certainly nematodes (make sure you washed your hands scrupulously as the eggs are tiny) and also known as wire or round worms and infect most organisms at some point. The oval ones, may be the start of tape worms?.

All fish are susceptible to parasites at high stocking density and that's why fish farms routinely 'treat' their stock. It would appear that this fish either missed the treatment or has a compromised immune system and hasn't been able to en-cyst the parasites.

Nodules are cysts which within which you will find more worms.

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Just My Tuppenceworth!!

The smaller ones were definitely nematodes of some kind.

If infected stock fish are put into a loch, is it then likely that the native fish will pick up the infestation as well?

And can we catch anything from the infected fish?