Geebags

Hi folks, I am resonably new to fishing and caught this today and can't for the life of me id it. Think it is some sort of garfish but what? Anyway he swallowed the hook and wasn't in a good way so was put down. On looking at him after (trying to retrieve the hook) I noticed a white parasite on each gill (one covering the whole of one gill). Anyways might have explained why it didn't fight much? Just wondering whether, with a fish containing such a parasite, it is still safe to eat. (One of the parasites I removed was the size of half of my little finger and was white and looked like a miniature mortan bay bug). G The picture, sorry for quality, had to reduce the size to get it to work on the web here..