Injured crappie that has healed... Anyone seen some like this?

[FalconSmitty]

Caught this crappie for the 2nd time yesterday. It was easy to spot because of the scar and half a tail.. Any of you catch the same fish over and over.


The crappie here have not slowed down this summer. They just change locations. Thank you to all that have taught me how to catch crappie each and every time I go fishing. We fished for 2 1/2 hours friday before dusk and wore them out. Took one of my sons friends that never caught or fished for crappie before. His dad and buddies are green carp guys. :rolleyes: He loves crappie fishing now. :D He caught this scarred fish. I was 1 lb. and 6 ozs. He said he had never seen anyone catch fish one after another as fast as I was catching them.... Me got big head!... I have caught crappie since I was 11 yrs old and did well but after learning on this site the past year I am catching more and better quality fish.
What do you think happened to the fish posted above. I know he likes to visit my boat.

[labill]

Smitty...I've seen them that were cut up from cormorants trying to make a meal of them, but not a wound like that. It looks like a puncture to me. Is the wound all the way thru? If not it could be still be a cormorant.

[Tommy Tidwell]

I have seen scars and cuts of every kind on crappie. Most are from cormorants. I have even seen the tip of a cormorants beak broken off in a crappie (3 different times). We found them when we cleaned them. Almost all the cuts will heal up in a couple of months. However, they will leave scars. We had 52 big keepers today up to 2.0 pounds and several had scars. One had a broken backbone, that had healed, near the tail.

[FalconSmitty]

I guess crappie are a tough fish. Cormorants must like big meals. I would love to see the fight between a pound crappie and a cormorant or heron. I bet it would be exciting.

Did you notice the top of the tail is rounded off. I wish I would have got the tail in the white background so you could see it better.

[Mike Sutton]

What is a Cormorants?

[rango]

its a diving bird that we see a lot of here in the south. sometimes ive seen em come up with fish and fly off that would make me wonder how they was gonna swaller it. if you hunting striper and see the gulls concentrated and diving, check to be sure there aint a bunch of comorants sittin on the water. theyll dive down and run the shad to the surface, which attracts the gulls which in turn attracts striper hunters, thinking there is a school of stripers drawing the gulls when its the comorants. it can be comical to see boats racing to a flock of gulls feeding thinking its striper when theres a flock of comorants sittin on the surface doing the damage. Been there done that myself.. lol

[Mike Sutton]

Thanks! Nothing like that up north that I know of. I've seen some diving birds though. thanks!

[DENNIS BOWERS]

Might be from an otter. I"ve caught a few here that they have had ahold of, Puncture marks on both sides,and injured tails.I"ve heard that in that assp[ect an otter is k like man.That sometimes they catch fish just to do it- not out of hunger????

[labill]

I guess crappie are a tough fish. Cormorants must like big meals. I would love to see the fight between a pound crappie and a cormorant or heron. I bet it would be exciting.

Did you notice the top of the tail is rounded off. I wish I would have got the tail in the white background so you could see it better.

Smitty, I've seen cormorants swallowing barfish (white bass) that were well over a pound. I was sure they would choke, but they got them down and never batted an eye. The worst part is that they're protected, and they eat tons of our favorite fish, the crappie.

[Boatman]

We have a ton of "commies" here in IA. Anywhere there is a decent size body of water there are commorants. Good for nothing fish eating birds that have a growing population.