Odd holes in a king fillet

[Broadhorizons]

Yesterday I was cleaning our fish and noticed a weird thing with one of the king fillets from a 2 year old fish. I cut one side and everything was fine passing it to my buddy who was rinsing and bagging. I flipped the fish and cut the other side. While skinning it, we noticed holes or air bubble-like voids in the flesh of the fillet in the tail section. Some of these holes could hold a marble they were so big. We re-checked the fillet from the other side and there was nothing. These were only on the one side, from the end of the pinbones to the tail. These voids had smooth edges, not like if I just stuck my finger in the flesh. We did not keep that fillet. It was like if you sliced through a block of swiss cheese.

Our third guy, the one with clean hands, yet technologically impaired, tried taking a pic but must not have operated my camera right, I do not have it.

Any thoughts on what might cause this? Has anyone else seen this?

[ray koziatek]

swiss strain of king

[lilboat]

`Lamprey's?

[Broadhorizons]

There were no lamprey scars on any of our fish this weekend. That was my first thought.

[lilboat]

Coild they have been healed?

[Big Dave]

We found some with those last year they were filled with a yellow liquid. Didn't keep those fillets

[jekyll]

Had one like that myself 2 weeks ago. Back into the hopper.

[Broadhorizons]

Guys,

I called a DEC fish biologist in Rome today to ask about this. The first thing he asked was if I notice a yellow fluid and an odor. He said they had more frequency of this in the Early 2000's, nearly 1 out of 60 fish in the Hatchery. He said they tried a study on it and did not find any determinate factor that caused it other than possibly some sort of infection or other injury. He said some they would find in the spawners were larger than a golf ball and here was no sign of any injury or scarring on the outside of the fish.

He said that they should be fine for consumption. I think I would have a hard time getting it cooked though looking like that. He also asked if I encounter this again, to save the fish if possible and he would like to look at it.