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Ill barbel

Jon Young

Senior Member
I hooked into a fish tonight and literally just reeled it in as if it was a 4oz roach. When I came to net it I saw it was a barbel which by the length of it should of been around the 5lb mark but it was incredibly thin. After it's head it's body just went in and it was just like it was hollow with loads of excess skin if that makes sense. Couldn't of weighed more than 2lb. It's bum looked like a chimps bum kind of sticking out again if that makes sense.
I slipped it back but you could tell it was on its last legs.
Is there any diseases that affect them?
Should I have maybe called ea?
My thought was maybe it had been deep hooked at some point and someone had cut the line and the hook is stopping it feeding.
Any thoughts?
 
Sounds like to poor fish was on it's last legs Jon . Other than put it out of it's misery I don't think there was much else you could have done :( It might have survived , you never know . Unless there is obvious signs of pollution and numbers of dead or distressed fish I doubt if a call to the EA would have elicited a response
 
I did think about putting it out if it's misery to be honest but I'm not one to hurt animals so wouldn't like to do it. I didn't think calling ea would do any good as all the other fish Iv been having have all been in excellent fighting condition this year so doesn't seem as though there is a disease spreading. It was just that Iv never seen a barbel like it. Only thing Iv seen similar was a video of a pike a lad caught that had treble hooks down its throat pinning it's stomach together so it couldn't eat.
Hopefully a big pike will put him out it's misery before too long.
 
Jules caught this fish on the Trent with what looks like a growth or tumour on its lip the size of a meatball!! DSCN0545.jpg
 
Just let nature do its thing. Not every fish in the river is going to be full of the joys. Like any species, some just simply do not make it.
 
Sounds like a kind of cancer that effects fish,like a wasting disease.Over the years we had two koi in the garden pond, that just wasted away,one recently died after about a year.During the 90's at Ravenstone on the Ouse i caught a 10lb 4 oz barbel covered with ulcers and what looked like UDN.The fish was in a terrible condition i was going to knock it on the head but thought better.That was June and the fish was caught lots of times,even on floating crust.The fish than disappeared,all thought it had died.The following March i was shown a photo of the same fish caught the week before,all of the ulcers healed and fungus gone, a pound heavier,though not a pretty fish,so miracles can happen.
 
I hooked into a fish tonight and literally just reeled it in as if it was a 4oz roach. When I came to net it I saw it was a barbel which by the length of it should of been around the 5lb mark but it was incredibly thin. After it's head it's body just went in and it was just like it was hollow with loads of excess skin if that makes sense. Couldn't of weighed more than 2lb. It's bum looked like a chimps bum kind of sticking out again if that makes sense.
I slipped it back but you could tell it was on its last legs.
Is there any diseases that affect them?
Should I have maybe called ea?
My thought was maybe it had been deep hooked at some point and someone had cut the line and the hook is stopping it feeding.
Any thoughts?

Could be one of many ailments that can affect freshwater fish Jon.
As Mark suggested , it could be a cancer,.or a serious parasitic infection/ infestation such as tapeworm which is not usually fatal, but may lead to inflamation of the host's intestine and a possible blockage.
Another possibility could be a bacterial infection from one of the 70 or so mysobacterium species such as TB or 'wasting desease'. The symptoms can see the fish with a hollow belly, loss of colour, skin ulcers and curvature of the spine.
Your poor old barbel was probably suffering from a plague of pests and parasites, as they tend to go for a weak host and can lead to secondary infections....shame.
As I mentioned in another thread some months back,..I once landed a barbel of about 8 lbs which should have gone a good 3 lbs bigger.
It had a tumour on it's mouth, and was coughing blood in the net. I can only think that another internal tumour had ruptured. I stood in the river for a full 45 mins trying to revive the fish but to no avail and it sadly died on me.
I shall never forget watching it float down the river. When I contacted the fishery manager and told him, he said that I should have delivered the fish to him and he would have sent it on to the then, NRA for autopsy.
dt:(
 
It's a strange thing isn't it? How we try so hard to catch them, which obviously does them no good, yet when we do we feel this enormous responsibility of care. Totally inexplicable to anyone passing by that asks: "Caught anything mate?". It's a tricky concept to convey that your worried sick about a fish that wished he/she had never met you.
 
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