I came across this pic today and just wanted to get every ones opinion. What in the heck is wrong with this fish? I caught it at lake cumberland ky this past summer and i have never seen anything like it before. Seriously what is wrong with its face?

Looks like he ran into the dam. I have no idea, but I bet someone does. Anxious to hear the feedback.

Not sure what causes that... but I caught a similar smallie in a tournament down around Bowling Green. Here is the pic:

I've seen this before, here is a photo of a striper Rob Choi caught a few years ago

A genetic error/birth defect? Maybe was injured as a small fish and just healed that way?

www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=427986


"I've never caught one out fishing though. I think that a lot of the genetic disfigurement comes from inbreeding or whats called line-breeding(which i imagine happens in hatcheries) I would bet 9-1 that the fish you caught was hatchery raised. "

My guess would be a genetic birth defect, because all these fish look to have similar issues but are from different environments.

Maybe its just a fishes version of having a cleft lip.

All of these pics came from people living in KY so im going to assume that they were all caught in KY. If this is true then im betting it most defanetally has something to do with imbreeding! Im just sayimg.....