Hotshot

I'm very curious too. Used to get them everywhere, they used to fight good on light lines, especially the bigger ones. Haven't caught one for years!

thats a great fish!!!!

Does it hurt the fish to kill the parasite by removing it or trying to remove it

Yeh I felt really sorry for the fish, having one of those doctors latch on to ur tongue would be bad enough, but in all my years of fishing I have never seen this style of parasite which buries itself under the skin. Poor buggers!

I've seen some leatherjackets in the past 2 or 3 months that have had huge lumps on both sides of there bodies, and on the edge of the base of these lumps were 1-2cm openings in the leatherjackets skin, one of the guys fishing near me also caught one, and as he was getting the hook out of the leatherjackets mouth, his thumb must have pushed on the lump, and out came a big parasite, which had clearly burrowed under the leatherjackets skin when it was small, and grown whilst in there. The parasite was bigger than a 50 cent coin, it was all white, quite similar to the ones that crawl out of the yakkas mouths when they die, except it was rounder and fatter. I have seen about 20 leatherjackets with this same thing on one or both sides of their bodies. Has anyone else seen this?

Great catch!