Question for someone with a fisheries biology background
 

I often catch large black drum when sight fishing for redfish. Sometimes I'll catch large drum that are "bright" and clean looking, and they usually run and fight hard and make a good accounting of themselves. Often though, I catch large drum that are a festering stinky mess with rotting fins, sometimes canker type sores on them and they stink to high heaven. These usually don't fight so well. Can anyone tell me what they are suffering from? Is it some sort of fungal infection? Just curios. Here's a nasty one I caught today. His fins and tail were rotten, his tail bled so much in the boat it looked like a crime scene. He stunk so bad that when I got back to the launch I changed clothes before getting in the truck because he had gotten me all stinky.

Ask Smalls
Dude has an answer promise

Nah, my man Waltrip right there knows. He's got thousands and thousands of notes on fish. Dude is a fisheries Einstein. I'm just a "marsh grass and weirs" guy.

Honestly, I'd have to do a little digging through some books, but may be able to find something out for ya.

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Its been a while since I've been in a fisheries class, but it could be bacterial, fungal, from abrasion, or a combination.

Thats a big spawning female. Tail bloody from fanning the nest.

It happens to redfish also, as you can see in the picture.

However, I think that black drum are more susceptible to a wide array of parasites and infections that either are much more rare in redfish or that are much more quickly fatal in redfish so that the sick fish are not caught as often.

We've caught a lot of sick black drum also, but on close inspection, there seems to be a variety of maladies.

Here's one a buddy of mine caught with some big nasty canker sores on it.
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...ps90c6ff4c.jpg

Bp fault!!!

Lmao. Dude knows everything I'm telling you. Smartest 26 yr old on the planet.

Nah, I've been seeing them like this since long before BP. Maybe it was because of the Exxon Valdize