Been doing alright on the town run in Eugene lately. Picked up a 28" buck last night that had a circular wound on his flank. Instead of scales it seemed to be skin, and it was colored like a trout in that one patch. The inside of the fillet was normal looking.

I'm thinking healed over lamprey bite? Any ideas?

Bullet hole.

Gang-banger steelhead.

My guess is you are right.

Recent graffiti activity and "urban campsites" at the trestle would back your hypothesis up, Dan. However it seems to be sponsored by the Springfield library:



Based on the oval nature of the wound, I think Lamprey more. Although I thought they were round mouthed critters, so thanks Slab for visual!

Best,

Must have stopped in for lap dance in P-town before heading up stream
Just saying.Good luck,

SZ

Siamese twin.... reabsorbed.

Just ask Twitch.

Got a similar pic of an OR fall chinook w/ the same anomaly.

I agree with most - it is an old lamprey scar.

Lampreys feed by attaching themselves to the fish and use those teeth and rasping tongue to open a wound and hold on to the side of the fish so they can feed off the various body fluids. Since it is essentially a surface injury would not expect to see scar tissue very deep into the meat.

The parasitic stage of Pacific and River lamprey is in the salt and they stop feeding once they reach freshwater (returning to spawn). Thus the healed condition of the wound. The oval nature of the scar could be due to growth of the fish after the lamprey was shed or a slight repositioning of the lamprey during its feeding efforts.

Due to a region wide population crash of lampreys such wounds are much rarer than a number of decades ago.

curt

Definitely NOT a lamprey scar.... those leave a unique impression because of the teeth pattern... looks like a cartoon face of a smiling China-man.

Cigarette burn

+1

See it quite often. I'll try to hunt up some of my pics.

Alien probe that missed "the spot"

Now I'm intrigued! Please put up your pics.

Well, I did a search for lamprey scars.....found a half dozen or so pictures, but none on our local salmon.....but the scars look very much like your fish. I want to see why Doc thinks it isn't.

Ok, here is a really easy to see example of an absorbed twin. Sometimes you will only see a slight difference in scales or coloration, this one clearly shows the dorsal patterns and color of the absorbed twin, and also has a couple additional fins (even another adipose). Note the tri-lobe tail, adipose next to the anal fin, and dorsal coloration on the ventral side of the dominate survivor smolt.





another

Me jaw just hit the ground. Never seen anything like that.
Very cool and interesting.

So is your opinion that the original posted pic is NOT a lamprey scar?

You see all kinds of resborbed twins from two head fish to the sort that twitch post (great photos btw). However keep in mind that Eugene said that the fillet of the fish near the "spot" in question was "normal".

Typically would expect the resborbed twin to more than a skin deep phenomenon.

I like Slab Happy have seen photos completely healed scars (months to years post injury) from lamprey "bites" that look very similar to that photo that started this discussion.

Curt

Teenage girl with braces.




Need I say more?

Turn your pic upside down and you will see the smiling China-man.... every lamprey leaves the same mark.

The original pic shows a macule of spotted dorsal skin located in a field of ventral skin and scales. That was the dead give-away. Even looks like there could be a vestige of adipose fin in that macule. Notice the small thickened tan-brown area.

Smiling China-man....

Fascinating. I was just recently talking about (pondering) why I continue to spend bits and pieces of my limited free time looking at this site and whether it is "worth it" whatever that means. Learning stuff, even if it is weird sh!t like this, is a big part of the draw. Super cool if not a bit creepy. Thanks for sharing guys.

"Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please." -Walter Sobchak