I worked as a family physician in Bella Coola Valley for over a decade and every few years someone would come in with a serious skin infection caused by cutting themselves on a salmon’s teeth. Perhaps it’s surprising it didn’t happen more often, given how many people fish in the Bella Coola River, and how much time they spend handling big, twisting salmon that are fighting to get back in the water.
A typical example of a cut was an angler who had reached into a salmon’s mouth to release their lure and in the process accidently cutting him or herself on the teeth. This can happen even when you are using pliers unless you are careful, because a chinook, coho or sockeye can give an incredibly powerful twist of its body without warning, raking sharp teeth across a naked hand. A few days later the hand could be painful, swollen, red, and discharging thin or thick pus.
Initially, I would give a penicillin or related antibiotic but more times than not I found it did not work very well. So we did our own study at the Bella Coola Hospital and swabbed the mouths of fish and the discharge from the skin infections of several anglers - and to our surprise found that most of the infections were caused by bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Aeromonas hydrophilia, and Yersinia ruckeri. All are gram negative bacteria which typically are not killed by penicillins.
Based on these observations, we recommend that all fishermen be aware that fish-associated skin infections may not respond to conventional penicillin antibiotics.
If you develop a serious looking fish-bite associated infection your doctor should add an antibiotic which will cover these Gram negative bacteria. Tetracycline, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, or ciprofloxacin were all good antibiotic choices based on our research.
Hopefully you won’t get your fingers slashed as you release a big salmon this year. But if you do, and if it turns into a painful infection, remember to download this article and take it to your doctor. It just might help you get back on the water sooner rather than later.
