bass with sea lice

[jimmyG]

would someone be so kind as to explain to me about sea lice and if its a good thing or not i see a lot of talk but as you can tell i dont know anything on it any info would be app. thanks jim

[Ray]

The lice are an indication if the fish are fresh, meaning coming in from the ocean. If the lice are not present (little amber colored creatures crawling on the skin), this means the fish have been wintering in local waters like warm water outflows or on the bottom in deeper like a harbor. We call these "holdovers".

There was a post recently talking about this in more detail.

[pvirn]

From what I know...which is not much other than what I've heard, sea lice are neither good or bad. However, in salmon fishing circles the presence of sea lice on salmon in the river are indicative of how "fresh" or "Bright" the salmon is. Fresh/bright salmon fight better. With stripers, I've heard that the presence of sealice indicates that they are migratory fish from more open ocean waters (we live on LI sound and because sea lice prefer cleaner water they are not typically present on our local fish).

All this jmho. Others here might have more insight.

Regards,
Mr Tarponi