My wife and I caught a nice mess of bluegill couple weeks back.We fried some fresh and froze the rest.My wife got looking around the net and became concerned over what we might be eating.She thawed some of the fish and there are tiny black specs in the meat.Her google search said frying them would take care of it but she wants to throw them out.Apparently these tiny black specs are some kinda parasite.
I questioned our local Game Warden back in the early 70's about this parasite. He said rather than explain it all he would supply me with a printed document on the life cycle of the black spots you are finding in the fish. The parasite is spread by the Kingfisher bird which eats fish and sits in trees over the water. What was explained is this. The Kingfisher defecates in the water. The parasites swim through the water and take up residence in a type of snail. After maturing the parasite then swims again and enters certain types of fresh water fish. In Minnesota we find them mainly in sunfish and perch. I have NEVER seen them in crappies and only rarely a few on the outside stomach area of walleyes and northern pike. The Game Warden explained they would have to eliminate all the Kingfisher birds to interrupt the life cycle of the parasite. They are harmless when properly fried but they are not pleasant to think about! If you take a larger one and pop it with the flat of a knife or other instrument you will observe the contents emerge much like popping a pimple or cyst. If I clean a fish with only a few black spots I ignore them and eat them. If the fillet looks like it has been sprinkled with large pepper spots I do not use them. Also be aware of the small white parasites in many fish that look like a slightly yellow colored dot in the opaque flesh. If you remove them they open up to reveal a small white worm resembling a tiny maggot. Again, they are destroyed by the cooking process done correctly but I hold each fillet up to the light and remove any of those I find. I find them in sunfish and bass, again never in crappies. If you find a body of water that produces fish with many black spots you can find other bodies of water nearby with few or none. I have also found them suddenly in lakes I have fished for years, then just as suddenly they are no longer in the fish in that lake a year or two later. I hope this helps you in deciding where to fish and what to eat. I prefer sunfish and do target them. Crappies are next and as I said I have never found a black or white parasite in any crappie, even from the same waters where the sunfish and perch are heavily infested.
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