mutilated tope

[Happy Dude]

seeing everyone is talking about tope just now i thought i would put this pic on of a small female tope i caught yesterday in luce bay, part of a nice catch of tope to 35lb we had over the weekend.

 

as you can see in the photos half her lower jaw is missing, it looks to me as if she has been caught on a line and the hook cut out along with her teeth.

 

other than this she was in perfect health and fit as a butchers dog.

 

amazing how resilient these fish are

 

any ideas??

 

 

[codroamer]

Maybe she was born deformed?

[jabee]

Agree with you Les

Looks like it's been ripped off a long line

[Ian Burrett]

Hi Les

Strange, I have seen doggies with tears in the mouth which i have always though was longline activity but they looked nothing like that. It doesn't look like a tear as there is a piece missing

 

The strange thing is, If you remember I said i had caught a tope which had huge teeth marks on it. They were in the same place as the missing bit on your tope.

[Davy Holt]

Hiya,

 

Yup Les.. looks like it's had a Longline hook ripped out of it

[Topecatcher]

Hi Les

I would agree with the longline although I would guess probably some time ago when the fish was probably much smaller

[The doctor]

Have to say I'm not convinced, with the long line theory. Thats quite a large chunk out of the lower jaw and if ripped of a hook I would expect a much smaller injury. Ians theory of a bite from a larger animal is possible, especially if young pack tope were competing for food, however, I would be more inclined to go for a genetic defect, mouth defects are not that uncommon in fish, and even in humans a cleft palate is relatively common. But hey what the hell do I know, just another stab in the dark. I'll make a few enquiries and see if anyone else has come across such a defect/injury before.

 

Best Fishes

 

 

Doc.

 

 

you not answering your phone topey?

[Happy Dude]

The strange thing is, If you remember I said i had caught a tope which had huge teeth marks on it. They were in the same place as the missing bit on your tope.

 

hi ian,

 

did you not get a photo of that fish on saturday??

 

i thought it had the wounds on it's flanks they way you described it

[Happy Dude]

Hi Les

I would agree with the longline although I would guess probably some time ago when the fish was probably much smaller

 

hi dave,

 

that was my thoughts as the wound was totally healed, just one of those things that turns up now and then, though admittedly i haven't seen much exept for twisted up cod in the clyde which in my infinite stupidity put down to a shallow gene pool in the cod of the clyde system

 

hows the fishing your end at the moment??

 

les

[Davy Holt]

Hiya,

 

Doc.. over the years I've had quite a few Spurs & LSD's that have had Long line damage, normally it's fresh and within a few weeks of a visit by a liner to my area. The initial injury can be a narrow slice where the hook has been ripped out but you also get the one's like in the picture where a part of the jaw is also removed.

 

Sadly having seen first hand how they un hook the fish they don't want it's amazing any of them survive full stop