Hello BR community!

 

Now that I finally created an account, I can finally ask a question I've had for weeks.  The first day fishing this year, which was five weeks ago, I caught my personal best; just a 3lb fish; nothing special compared to some of yours, but a great way to start the year.  Anyway, while looking at the pics a week later, I noticed a couple things that were odd.  One, there's blood coming from the belly of the fish.  Is that natural from spawning?  Two, the skin towards the tail started turning red.  In the first pic, you can see that part about the blood coming from the belly and no redness near the tail.  In the second pic, you can see the redness near the tail.  Anyone know what the redness is from?

 

P.S. Too bad we can't upload bigger pics.

Two guesses:

 

If the tail area is red it could be from fanning the bed.

 

By looking at the photo the bass may have been attacked.

 

How about asking the California Department of Fisheries your questions and let us know what they tell you.

By the looks of the fish I would say it was attacked by something or was injured in some other way, like chasing bait fish through brush or something like that. I believe that the red mark on this fish is much to high to be spawning related.

These bass are spawner's and by the shape I say males making and guarding the nest that may have been caught a few times and bounced on a boat carpet.

Tom

Ok, I was trying to figure out where to find the "gallery" button, to add larger pics, but I don't know where to find it.  I did use the "resize" link, but while trying to load three pics, it won't let me, so I had to reply three times to add three pics.

 

 

Anyway, it's just weird because the time that lapsed between taking the two pics were just a few seconds, and in the first pic, there is no redness by the tail, but then there is a lot of red in the second pic. 

 

And the red (bloody) dot on the belly of the first pic is odd, but I also noticed that with the first I caught before, which I've also added, which has the cloudy background.  You can see a little blood by the belly.

Second pic.

This is the first fish I caught that day, and you can see some blood on the belly.

Two guesses:

 

If the tail area is red it could be from fanning the bed.

 

By looking at the photo the bass may have been attacked.

 

How about asking the California Department of Fisheries your questions and let us know what they tell you.

Not a bad idea.  I'll ask, and hopefully I'll get an answer.

The red dot and red areas is the femal bass showing evidence of spawning activity, these are normal conditions, no concern for alarm.

Tom