In Reply to: Re: the fish in the top picture is seriously malnurished posted by Rob on February 25, 2006 at 08:20:31:

That fish is not big enough to be old enough to be dieing of old age...(please forgive the excrutiating syntax:)

believe it or not, i have visited creatures in the wild for years on end that have gotten old and died of presumably natural causes.

I will grant you that sometimes mature fish like that will show similar signs of being depleted after the spawn. I can only hope that is the case with this incredible resident of our shared wilderness.