In the summer of 2024, I was vacationing with family in Door County. It was a Friday afternoon, and while deep fryers in taverns and VFW halls across Wisconsin hissed in anticipation of battered fish, I was several miles off the coast of Sturgeon Bay aboard a charter boat on Lake Michigan. The fishing trip had been my mom’s idea. I was skeptical — the excursion was expensive, and I wasn’t convinced my weak stomach could handle the lake’s chop — until something heavy struck my line.
The reel screamed. I leaned back and cranked against it, slow and steady, for what felt like hours. When I finally hauled the fish over the rail — a gleaming king salmon, as long as a toddler — I felt a rush of triumph that quickly gave way to something else. Clinging to the fish’s belly was a slick, black parasite, writhing like something cursed.
“What the hell is that?” I asked our guide…