perch

Question
in my 13 acre lake we have a lot of perch.  but on there skin are small black dots, some have a few some have a lot i never saw this until about 3 or 4 years ago. wat are these and are the fish ok to eat.  im 14 so maybe its a dumb question.

Answer
Scott; I do not know what part of the
country you are from so I can not be absolutely sure of my answer.  
I have not noticed this in the area where I now live but years ago I used to fish in northern Minnesota almost every summer and in some lakes the perch as well as several other fish had these little black spots and like your case some had many others had few.  I did notice that in fish which were skinned before cooking the spots were just in the skin but in the perch, blue-
gills and crappie we ate the fish skin and all with no harm.  The locals said they were a parasite of the skin of the fish and did not harm people who ate them.  In that same area some fish had small yellow lumps in the flesh.  This nearly only in yellow perch.  The local people called them wormy perch and did not eat them.  Later, in Virginia, I found these same kind of small lumps in some smallmouth bass, especially from the Shenendoah River.  A friend of a friend  was a fisheries biologist who said that they were paracites but were harmless if the fish were cooked and probably would not harm us if we ate the fish raw.  I ate the cooked ones but never tried them raw.

I suggest that you call your state game and fish commission.  If it is something that might hurt you or your fish you might be able to do something to stop it.  Just pull up your state fish and game department or whatever it is called on the internet and they will lead you to the right person to talk to.

I am sorry I cannot be of more definite help with this but I am not a biologist only a fisherman.

I do have access to a fisheries biologist that I could contact if you cannot get help otherwise.  Please contact me if you need further help.

Jack L. Gaither
Lake Seminole Georgia

[email protected]