Worms in Trout

Ted said:

I caught a trout, just off the Mactaquac head pond yesterday. When cleaning it, I found that it was full of these inch and a half long skinny worms that were alive and moving around. The flesh of the trout was mushy, and you could see where they were eating away at the guts of the fish.

A google search didnt turn up anything usefull. Does anyone have any info on this, as Ive not seen this before...

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As a former resident of Northern Maine, we have seen this in all species of fish, from Landlocked Salmon, Brookies, Smelt, Cusk, Carp,Catfish,Lake Trout, Splake even Yellow Perch. We first noticed it in the early eighties and it has never gone away. It is worse in some years than others with some fish not being very appealing to eat. You can even see them in the flesh of the fish before you even catch them, especially if you are fishing during the day with the windows blocked in the shack. It will appear as an almost fluorescent white spot in the fish flesh when you watch them swimming around. We never had those issues until the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife started to allow bait fish that were not native to a particular lake to be used. When the "Pin Smelt" craze hit in the early eighties is when we started seeing the worm issues. It seems to be a parasite thats pretty rugged and transmits itself from species to species through mainly ingestion, but is also water borne. I have never heard of anyone getting sick from eating cooked fish infected with the worms, but I'm certain those people have a much stronger stomach that I do, thats for sure.

these sound like yellow fat worms. a real problem in pickeral and yellow perch, i don't often see them in trout. it seems to be related to water temperature: warm = wormy!
then, it's numbers are also affected by shallow water: deep = good!
they are not a problem in cooked fish, the worms are called "fat" worms because they cook out and become just fat (you know, like the gross worms people eat in the jungle...?!) they often show right through the skin around the head.
if there is only a few, i pick them out. if it's full of them, it's garbage. if i'm filletting the fish, after i take the skin off, i "candle" the clean fillette. to do this, it's just like your grand mothers used to do for eggs (to see if the roster got to it first and fertized it!) - hold it up to a strong light. these parasites are clearly visible by doing this, although you need to check both sides (you also catch any scales that got on the meat). if you see any just use a knife to cut down to the worm, then use the tip to pull out the whole worm.

a nasty parasite, still, i prefer them to "bird shot" parasites - they are hard on the teeth!!!

ps; if you see some bird shot parasites in the flesh ( bird shot or smaller black/dark brown round hard shells) there are a lot more you can't see. again they are fine if you full cook your fish...but i will not eat it - to crunchy!!!