Sea lice ?

[Fish Nut]

Has anyone seen Sea lice on the fish recently in the bay?

I was lucky this weekend and managed to catch a few small fish C/R. The fish were fat brilliant in color and extremely feisty. They didn’t have any sea lice on them.

[Slayer]

I read an article somewhere (I'm trying to locate it now) about sea lice and salinity levels of water. Seems they really like salty water and will fall off in lower salt levels. If that's the case, the the rains and snow melt may have lowered the salinity levels in the bay below the point they prefer.

If I can find that article, I'll post it later in this thread.

[Fish Nut]

Yes the sea lice don’t survive long in the bay. Once an ocean run fish enters the bay the sea lice fall off shortly thereafter because of the lower salinity levels of the bay. In the past I have heard number such as 48-72 hours after a fish enters the bay the sea lice fall off. I don’t know how true this is. In years past I have caught fish in the upper bay loaded with sea lice around this time.

A fish with lice is assumed to be fresh in from the ocean.

Just haven’t heard of any sea lice sightings this year.

[jumbo1]

Lots of sea lice......I mean lots........

[Breakaway]

Fished Thursday and had a good day. No sea lice......

[Reverb]

Nothing better than falling on your ass, because you just stepped on about a dozen sea lice. Just hasn;t happened to me yet this year...

BUT, I'll take Jamies word for it...

[Skip]

The few fish I've gotten up near Bloody Point have only had 1-2 lice on them.
One had a few 1-2 inch worms on it's back.

Rob our fish Friday had lice...

[goinsfishin]

I've seen a few with lice, but havn't really been looking.....most of the fish I've caught have been released boatside without leaving the water.....made one exception for a picture.

[jwittman]

We caught two fish on Saturday and only one came out for a quick pic. As I was cleaning up the boat I did fine one. Like you said, nothing like years past though.