Panacea 6/1 Report

[ontiltttttt]

Corralled the troops last Saturday for a little fishing down in Panacea and the flounder bite was insane. Fishing around residential docks with 1/2oz jig heads and Gulp Shrimp was the ticket to catching some doormats sized flounder. We caught them all day long with the largest being 23-24 inches.

My buddy also tussled with a 3 ft blacktip shark and I was able to muscle in a 7lb gafftopsail catfish, the largest I had ever seen.

I had heard from an FWC officer earlier that day that gafftopsail cats were good eating but upon cleaning mine I noticed some small white balls, maybe about the sized of a cooked rice grain, embedded in a fillet. Upon closer inspection (and cutting some out) I noticed they were small worms crawling through my "dinner." Throughly grossed out, I cut the fillets into cubes and fed the seagulls; I'll know better next time

Here's a picture of the largest flounder from this weekend.

[Mo Redd]

Were you fishing inside Ochlockonee Bay, inside the bridge? I found those balls in a 19 inch speckled trout the other day. I just pulled them out and fried it up. I don't think that kind of worm damage is going to hurt the filet any.

[big bend gyrene]

Completely safely to eat.. aquatic tapeworms (cestodes). Seatrout are notorious for being infested but almost no one throws them away because those who target them regularly know they have the worms and that the worms pose no threat. Just a bit of extra protein!

Link below speaks to the worms in quite a bit of detail.

http://research.myfwc.com/engine/downlo ... pe=product