Seneca Lake Northern pike illness?

[apb]

For the second time in the last few weeks I saw a Northern Pike with a large spot or spots of white frothy looking matter on its skin.  Both times the fish just very slowly drifted under my boat without even a flinch.  Can anyone explain what this is?  Thanks...

Edited April 27, 2013 by apb

[Sk8man]

Could be a fungal infection they are very prone to that when an area of protective slime is removed from their skin for example (as in someone poorly handling it when released). Usually seen more often in the Summer and Fall when the temps are higher though but could have had it for a while I suppose.

Edited April 27, 2013 by Sk8man

[steelydan]

if it looked like cotton on the fish it could have been a disease called ick. this is common in ornamental ponds but not so much on a natural lake. koi are very prone to it.

[salmodan]

iI have witnessed trout in lake o tribstribes with same affliction, theirs is usually caused by waiting in the frog water for the rains to come and raise creek levels, iI wonder if the fish came from same environment and are moving back to the main lake, not sure when pike spawn but it could be from that too.

[guff]

Gosh, I hope it is not the same disease that absolutely obliterated the Seneca pike population 4 or 5 years ago. The lake was teaming with nice size pike then almost overnight they died off. Heard reports of people seeing them lying dead on the bottom and I saw some floating with a green scum on them. I thought the population was rebounding but this sounds scarey. I love catching pike.

[pokepole39]

fished ontario and my buddies son caught a nice northern with red nasty spots covering its whole body never even took a pic is was so nasty ..pitty it was a good pike even if not in season .... 

[BSmaster]

I hate seeing it but it is probably as natural as a winter fish kill.  Too bad for many reasons but mother nature has her methods.  This is why it is important to let the bigger fish go and keep the eaters instead (if you keep them) If you just like to catch and release try to do it with less harm to the fish - what ever that means to you.  I think the pike population will be fine but please be conscious of it.

[ifishy]

white and fuzzy sounds like a fungal infection a lot of times the spores spread through contact and will bloom and grow when the fish is stressed and weakened.  so post spawn is when you see more of this as you had a bunch of fish in close contact so one carrier can spread to many than they are stressed from being underfed and in the case of pike beating the crap out of each other.  hopefully it wont lead to a widespread die off i remember fishing seneca about 6 years back befor i had riggers on the boat we would troll the shallows and you couldnt get 2 lines in the pike were so thick.  one day in april after not catching any perch we just crusied the shallows with the electric to see what we could see and the pike were everywhare by the hundreds.  i remember the big die off but I think more pike survied that most know but they spread out I know last year in early march we couldnt buy a bite off of severen so at the end of the day we pulled out the spinning gear and went shallow over the weeds we got 5 in one 30 minuet pass so there are still numbers around