Not something I am used to seeing, but was pointed out to me on a bass I caught. Anyone know why/what?

Jeff

you mean that little spot an inch or two below the eye? looks normal to me...

Nope, actually on the red of the gills there is white! It can be seen good in this picture and one other one i have, but i'm not good at editing photos to blow it up bigger!

jeff

OH! i see it now. you said gill plate so i didn't even look at the actual gills. that's weird, i've never seen that before. might be some kind of fungal infection.

It is just an infection of some kind.

This usually indicates that the fish could possibly be stressed...

but from what I can see the rest of the fish looks healthy so it is probably just an unlucky fish that got this infection

Is it something that will kill the bass or spread to other fish?

Was it pointed out by someone who saw the picture or someone who saw the bass when you caught it? The reason I ask is because it looks normal to me. You are flairing the gills out alot and the white looks like the rakers that are on the inside edge of the gills.

I kinda noticed it when I caught it, and then it was pointed out to me when I showed a picture. If you look at this link, there are 2 pictures where you can see it. One looks like what you are talking about with "raker" but you can definitely tel it is on the gills as well if you look close,

Jeff

Is it something that will kill the bass or spread to other fish?

As far as I know its not a viral thing so it probably does not spread from fish to fish.

I have very limited knowledge on this... so I always could be wrong!