I've been fishing this river in the middle of the state. It's an amazing place. One of those rivers with a big population of smallmouth bass that can grow to large sizes too. The best thing is that it is just a few miles off of the interstate and there is very little development and nobody fishes it. I fished it for the first time on Saturday and caught a few nice fish I fished it again on Monday and today and caught a few huge smallies.
The thing is that when I do catch a big smallmouth from this river, say 18 plus inches, it has one of these things on it. I know, it freaks you out doesn't it. I will touch and handle just about anything, but since I caught a bass with one of these things attached to it I have had the creepy crawlies ever since. It's a lamprey eel. A brook lamprey to be exact, at least I think. There is a variety called the sea lamprey that infiltrated the Great lakes through the Welland Canal and caused the lake trout population to plummet. B
ut, this lamprey is native. They are like leeches, leeches that stay on you forever. They are basically eels with a toothy toilet plunger on its face. I know, they look like something that will leap out of some alien egg and suck your brains out. Needless to say, these things are always wriggling around in the back of my mind while I am wading in the river. Yeeeeesh!Anyway, here is the smallmouth bass--happily without a lamprey stuck to his back. Though I am not one to get in the way of nature, I do not like the idea of these things sucking the life from the river's population of large smallmouth.
