The article on the Kodiak Sea Louse has rather piqued my curiosity. Here in Washington and British Columbia the term "sea louse" is commonly applied to a small (usually around 1/4 inch in length), tear-drop shaped, dorsally flattened copepod which attaches itself to saltwater fish, usually somewhere near the vent. These parasites persist for a while on salmon, steelhead and sea-run cutthroat entering fresh water on their spawning runs; unable to tolerate the change in salinity levels, they usually die and drop off in a day or two. These are the sea lice whose excessive numbers in proximity to commercial net pens where Atlantic salmon are reared, like areas near British Columbia's Broughton Archipelago, have been blamed for the decimation of outmigrating pink salmon fry.


The fly depicted in the article looks much more like a Mysid, a shrimp-like crustacean sometimes referred to as an "eel-grass shrimp", a staple in the diet of many anadromous fish at certain periods of their saltwater lives. It is particularly important to young chinook salmon and to sea-run cutthroat. Although the range of the Dolly Varden (except in a few high alpine streams) doesn't extend south into Washington, we do have anadromous bull trout whose life histories and habits are very similar. These also feed heavily, in and around the estuaries and along the beaches of Puget Sound, on these inch-long creatures.