Sea Lice on Lingcod

[Squire]

Has anyone else found tiny, red, fast-moving sea lice on lingcod around the Gulf Islands and know what they are called? I found them on a couple of 70-75 cm specimens off one particular rock pile. I was surprised at how fast they can motor around in the slime layer.
An internet search turned up the attached video with much bigger ones than I saw but still with the ability to race around.

Pacific northwest sea lice on lingcod - Google Search

 

[Rain City]

Has anyone else found tiny, red, fast-moving sea lice on lingcod around the Gulf Islands and know what they are called? I found them on a couple of 70-75 cm specimens off one particular rock pile. I was surprised at how fast they can motor around in the slime layer.
An internet search turned up the attached video with much bigger ones than I saw but still with the ability to race around.

Pacific northwest sea lice on lingcod - Google Search

Grossssssssss

 

[Squire]

Grossssssssss

It was off-putting for sure but the ones I saw were tiny and only a few to several of them, not infested like in the video.
It was fascinating (and a bit shocking) to see them zip around in the slime layer at such an unbelievable speed

 

[Tips Up]

Yup. I've seen them on fish caught in Sidney this year. I pretended not to see them and all was good.

 

[Howzer]

Caught a largish ling cod last week with one huge sea lice on it's fin. It had some yellow and red on it too... Was maybe 3x the size of regular salmon lice.

 

[Rain City]

I've dealt with silverfish infestations in previous homes, so I have PTSD with that type of movement.

 

[SpringFever2359]

Its from all those Dam fish farms in the Gulf Islands....

 

[Tips Up]

Don't think what I saw was lice. some weird little red worms. Lots of weird stuff live on fish.
Makes them high in protein.