Always wonder about this but I never could remember to ask about it.
You guys ever noticed that alot of salmon in the OP rivers have small black leeches on their fins and tail?
Any info on these creatures and their role in the river?

Thank You and
Take Care.

Next time you get a particularly funky chum take a close look at the area around the anal fin. There are several critters to be found with the naked eye and, I suspect there are many more microscopic bugies.

Sorry about the high technical response but I want to be 100% scientifically accurate

Sure we're not talking about sea-lice?

Leeches are common to a lot of OP waters, including lakes (Ozette) and rivers (Wishkah, Satsop and others). See them sometimes on late coho in the Grays Harbor streams, seems to me mostly on dark fish that have been in the river for a while. Good reason to release them without bringing them into the boat. Leeches are an annelid worm, and while they are heinous little bloodsuckers, they are eaten by fish -- leech patterns are very effective flies for trout on eastside lakes.

Heres a great technique gear guys can use, coming from a flyguy.
Instead of using a corky,yarn,etc. when bouncing lead, pinch a small clump of Marabou about 2" long and insert it in the egg loop of the hook and then tighten.
Wallah! There is your "black leech" !
Black marabou is the most DEADLY material when Flyfishing for Steelhead, which also can be for gear throwing.
Good luck!

Peter ><>

I like a pink or orange jig with a 2 inch black/purple maribu feather, looks like a egg with a leach on it under a float.....DJ

The Hoh is especially loaded with them, and rarely do we think of them as a bait ... sually we're trying to figure out how to keep them off of us after handling a fish, especially any of the fall salmon that always seem to have their gills choked with them.

Yes they were most likely leeches.

Here in the Pacific Northwest there are a number of species of leeches found (a dozen or more). They are found in both moving and still waters. They can vary in size from less than an inch to several inches long and in color from a pale whitish to almost black. While all the species have "sucker mouths" none of those found in this region are blood suckers. They use their sucker disks to hold on the bottom and other objects. If you are wading in an area that has leeches (typically slow water with fine sediments and detritus you may find some attached to you -just pull gentlely to remove. Even though there may be a red mark where they were attached to you they really are just attaching themselves to you as any other object - not trying to feed on your blood.

In the rivers ther various leehes tend to be most active during warmer temperatures and in slow moving streams thus one is more likely to see them on salmon than steelhead. Have seen leeches on all salmon species and really on steelhead (usually a late spring winter or late fall fish). the steelhead are much less prone to hold in slow water areas than salmon. Most commonly see leeches on coho but have seen years when it seems ever chum is load with them.

In one case (in 2000) the fall flows were very low and the chums quite abundant. In one small creek on the Stillaguamish there was some significant pre-spawn mortality on the early chums (afer a significant rain and rise in the creek the problem disappeared) The fish's gills were absolutely load with leeches it was thought that the heavy infestation contributed to the pre-spawn mortality; along with stress from having huge numbers of fish (several 1,000 in little more than 1/2 mile of stream) in flows that were lower abd warmer than normal.

They are just another example of the great bio-diversity found in our rivers and should not be great concern.

Tight lines
Smalma

So, are they fish parasites or just hitching a ride up river?
Or perhaps they are breeding directly on the fish to provide a source of food for their babies.
What are they feeding on; blood, slime, flesh, or nothing?

I am curious because I don't see them clinging on fish anywhere else except on the coastal rivers.

Thanks

Or how about those ring-worm like bumps that grow on salmon this time of year? I hear that they are ok to keep from local friends, but I'm not that hungry (yet). Steely season is just 'round the corner.

Iron head-
The seem to be just hitch hikers - actually they may be just attaching themselves to fish just as they would any other object (rock, log etc). They feed primarily on the algae etc on the stream bottom.

Have seen leeches on salmon on every NOrth sound river systems that I have spend much time on inlcuding Nooksack, Samish, Skagit, Stillaguamish, and Snohomish systems.

Hoh#er-
the "ring worm" marks and the scale bumps are two other critters. While the fish are edible (make sure to cook them well) they are not very appetizing looking. Not good candidates for sushi!

Tight lines
Smalma

We just caught a Chum on the upper Sky a week ago that had a bunch of them in its gills.
I have caught Steelhead that have some sort of long white colored parasites near the tail. I have wondered what those are.