Eat your catch or release?

Joined
Sep 23, 2010
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1,058
Reading an article in the paper the other day about the mercury found in most fish. It was kinda disappointing. Still, some folks still eat their catch and some will only catch and release. Some comments were, "I fish for food not sport." In south Florida, fish issues have been a real concern because of Big Sugar; phosphate/fertilizer and aquifer pollution. Interestingly, mercury issues are a salt and fresh water concern. So...what do you do? Catch and eat or release?
 

rockyrude

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Sep 10, 2007
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1,121
Re: Eat your catch or release?

I do enjoy eating my catch now and then. The way I understand it, the mercury settles in the fat of the fish. So I just cut the belly and back fat off before cooking. Probably not 100% safe, but so are a lot of other things.
 

JB

Honorary Moderator Emeritus
Joined
Mar 25, 2001
Messages
45,907
Re: Eat your catch or release?

I eat selected sizes of select species. My criteria are yummyness and any legal limitations.

#1 Saltwater species are mahi mahi and blackfin tuna. If I caught them I would also eat mako and swordfish.

#1 Freshwater species is slotted* walleye, but crappie and bluegill over about 8" and slotted* channel cat are also on the menu.

When I caught pacific salmon in Lake Michigan I ate those, too.

No paranoia about mercury or other pollutants.

* Over some minimum and under some maximum.
 

Summer Fun

Banned
Joined
Mar 2, 2002
Messages
2,251
Re: Eat your catch or release?

I don't fish, But when my friends catch some, I'll put teeth marks all over one. :)
 

R Socey

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Jan 9, 2011
Messages
501
Re: Eat your catch or release?

Typically I only fish for species I plan on keeping. The cost of fishing is so high that I want to get something of monetary value back.
I consider myself to be a fish hunter - hunters don't release. So I target prolific migratory brackish to salt water species like croaker, white perch, bluefish, spot, spanish mackeral etc. I have caught enough fish in my life that now I don't want to bother them unless I plan to consume them. I target catfish only to breakup the winter monotony.
 

Philip_G

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Apr 6, 2010
Messages
634
Re: Eat your catch or release?

95% release.
if I have a friend that wants some I'll keep them a few, if it's particularly good eating like perch or walleye I'll keep and eat. Trout you can have, blech.
 
Joined
Sep 23, 2010
Messages
1,058
Re: Eat your catch or release?

“The cost of fishing is so high”

Ain’t that the truth! My last time out… We decided to take the boat to the Keys for some trout fishing in the back country. I know a little spot that typically produces a bountiful catch. We were rounding the bay, out about 20 minutes, when we approached the cut that leads to our secret location. The outboard gave it up. Dead in the water. I had just filled the tank ($50) and had bought a new battery for the trolling motor ($100). Of course, the outboard had a fresh tune up, etc. Sadly, it would be a slow ride back so I dropped the trolling motor into the water and turned around. About 2 hours later, we arrived at the dock. The next day (New Years Eve) my wife suggested I call the marina and rent a boat. Uh-huh. I figured I would give it a shot and on the second call, the guy said he had a pontoon. YAY! I drove over, brought the pontoon back, loaded wife, son, and two dogs and headed back to the back country. At the end of the day… $250 for the rental, $100 in fuel, and one trout. So…did I eat it? Oh yeah…at $500 it was delicious.
 

tomdinwv

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
665
Re: Eat your catch or release?

The only fish I keep and eat are the ones I catch in my Dad's farm pond. He has some pretty big catfish and bass in there. I usually boat in the Kanawha River. There are signs posted at some of the public access sites about contaminated fish. If I remember right, they say to limit your consumption to once a month or none at all if you're pregnant. If I do catch anything out of the river, it goes right back in. I used to go trout fishing in a small (and I mean small) lake in a campground and I would eat what we caught there. Many of the public streams around my area were contaminated years ago by the mining and chemical industries. They have since been cleaned up, but in my mind, I could not bring myself to eat the fish.
 

Ibl0wstuffup

Petty Officer 3rd Class
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
85
Re: Eat your catch or release?

I don't eat the fish in the Detroit river or lake St. Clair. Too many factorys upstream. I do eat what I catch in the big lakes. They have signs in alot of places here that say don't eat the fish because of pcb's.
 

roscoe

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Oct 30, 2002
Messages
21,859
Re: Eat your catch or release?

Eat perch, walleye, northern, avoid bottom feeders, mostly because they don't taste good in my mouth.



I also avoid most bottom feeding seafood, considering the sources they are procured from these days, but will indulge in a few shrimp once in a while.

Funny how people are concerned about eating their own catch, but don't give a thought about the fish and seafood they eat at a restaurant.
 

Scott Danforth

Grumpy Vintage Moderator still playing with boats
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Jul 23, 2011
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51,887
Re: Eat your catch or release?

catch, fillet, release
 

kfa4303

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Sep 17, 2010
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6,094
Re: Eat your catch or release?

Well I'm Veggie, so I throw them all back. The health issues are just a sad reminder of what we've done to the planet. Think about it for a minute. Mercury only naturally exists in a few places, deep in the bowels of the Earth, and yet we've used (misused) so much of it that it can now be found in virtually every fish, in every ocean on the entire planet :/ And it ain't going anywhere. Toxic heavy metal poisonings are no joke and can lead to a whole host of neurological problems that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, and it don't take much. Don't believe me, go eat some lead paint chips, or sniff some leaded gasoline fumes for a while, and let me know what happens. Better yet, let your kids do it.
Lead, there's another one. Don't even get me started on that one. Everyone knows about lead in old paint and gas, but the real culprit are bullets. Hundreds and hundreds of tons of lead have been fired and left idle at the range, woods and elsewhere. All the while leaching into the groundwater and soil beneath it. Fun, fun, fun. Yet another reason I'm glad I'm Veggie. Plus, I can always take a pic and let the fish go, but you can't really un-shoot a deer. (No. I'm not anti-gun, just anti-not cleaning up your mess and unintended lead toxicity. Your bullets have the right to kill your game, not me via lead poisoning)
Never mind the plummeting fish stocks, because you know if you live in Kansas 1,500 miles form the nearest ocean you should be able to get Bluefin tuna anytime you want it, right? (sarcasm + facepalm) :/ Here's a thought; go to the sea to get "Sea Food", not the midwest. We'll do the same and call if we need some corn, or something. Oh, and if you think you're sidestepping the issue because you're getting "farm raised" Catfish/Tilapia (ick), Salmon (double ick), and/or Shrimp (triple ick) you're wrong. Instead of "farm raised" think "giant cesspool of bacteria, viruses, filth and waist". Also, there's a reason people who can and do catch real salmon, catfish, etc...won't go near that farm raised crap for all the tea in China. Once you've had real Salmon, that artificially dyed, orange s#%t they try to sell to the suckers at the store just won't cut it anymore, and nor should it. It's just like making sausages. (Yeah, you don't wanna know how they do that either. Pink Slime anyone? Come on it's good enough for our kids, right?) After all, how do you think they get a pound of shrimp shipped in from half way around the world to cost less than the stuff swimming in our own oceans? The same way we get $10 tools for $2 at Harbor Freight :/ Never mind the fact that every pound of foreign shrimp you buy, puts a local fisherman out of business. That is when the oil companies aren't also helping out by releasing untold millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf. So you see there really is only one way to win the game, which is not to play. (anyone remember War Games?)

I'll get off my soapbox now :)


Take only pictures, leave only footprints.
 

Johny25

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Feb 8, 2012
Messages
265
Re: Eat your catch or release?

Has anyone actually heard of mercury levels in fish ACTUALLY being directly linked to someones bad health? I think there is entirely to much paranoia involved with the whole mercury/pcb debate and discussion. The media feeds this hysteria. Now would I eat fish out of the Mississippi, probably not unless I was really hungry. Maybe a couple a year tops. But I live in an area where there is very clean water, deep mountain lake, stream fed and I still here about this paranoia here lol...... I grew up on the Mississippi back East and the people here have no idea what pollution really is. I feel much more comfortable eating fish I catch out of water I know well as opposed to buying something in a store that was caught out of the ocean and who knows where?

They say not to eat more than 1 fish a month out of the lakes around here and it just blows my mind as to who came up with this crap? I think it started back East and rolled across the country over the years...lol. I have eaten literally tons of fish over my lifetime (and even many out of the mighty Miss as a kid) and I am healthy as a horse and have never had any health issues. So I say it is all a bunch of over hyped BS!
 

Fishing Dude too

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
May 13, 2011
Messages
1,035
Re: Eat your catch or release?

In the state they have health advisory on fish printed in the regs. I eat fish about 2 times a month Perch, and Walleye. Yes they are caught in Lake Erie but I throw the 2 headed ones back.
 

FlaCowboy

Ensign
Joined
Dec 8, 2011
Messages
973
Re: Eat your catch or release?

Well I'm Veggie, so I throw them all back. The health issues are just a sad reminder of what we've done to the planet. Think about it for a minute. Mercury only naturally exists in a few places, deep in the bowels of the Earth, and yet we've used (misused) so much of it that it can now be found in virtually every fish, in every ocean on the entire planet :/ And it ain't going anywhere. Toxic heavy metal poisonings are no joke and can lead to a whole host of neurological problems that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, and it don't take much. Don't believe me, go eat some lead paint chips, or sniff some leaded gasoline fumes for a while, and let me know what happens. Better yet, let your kids do it.
Lead, there's another one. Don't even get me started on that one. Everyone knows about lead in old paint and gas, but the real culprit are bullets. Hundreds and hundreds of tons of lead have been fired and left idle at the range, woods and elsewhere. All the while leaching into the groundwater and soil beneath it. Fun, fun, fun. Yet another reason I'm glad I'm Veggie. Plus, I can always take a pic and let the fish go, but you can't really un-shoot a deer. (No. I'm not anti-gun, just anti-not cleaning up your mess and unintended lead toxicity. Your bullets have the right to kill your game, not me via lead poisoning)
Never mind the plummeting fish stocks, because you know if you live in Kansas 1,500 miles form the nearest ocean you should be able to get Bluefin tuna anytime you want it, right? (sarcasm + facepalm) :/ Here's a thought; go to the sea to get "Sea Food", not the midwest. We'll do the same and call if we need some corn, or something. Oh, and if you think you're sidestepping the issue because you're getting "farm raised" Catfish/Tilapia (ick), Salmon (double ick), and/or Shrimp (triple ick) you're wrong. Instead of "farm raised" think "giant cesspool of bacteria, viruses, filth and waist". Also, there's a reason people who can and do catch real salmon, catfish, etc...won't go near that farm raised crap for all the tea in China. Once you've had real Salmon, that artificially dyed, orange s#%t they try to sell to the suckers at the store just won't cut it anymore, and nor should it. It's just like making sausages. (Yeah, you don't wanna know how they do that either. Pink Slime anyone? Come on it's good enough for our kids, right?) After all, how do you think they get a pound of shrimp shipped in from half way around the world to cost less than the stuff swimming in our own oceans? The same way we get $10 tools for $2 at Harbor Freight :/ Never mind the fact that every pound of foreign shrimp you buy, puts a local fisherman out of business. That is when the oil companies aren't also helping out by releasing untold millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf. So you see there really is only one way to win the game, which is not to play. (anyone remember War Games?)

I'll get off my soapbox now :)


Take only pictures, leave only footprints.


Okay fess up...who peed in kfa`s veggie garden? :D

I do both. I keep some and release some.
 

sschefer

Rear Admiral
Joined
Nov 13, 2008
Messages
4,530
Re: Eat your catch or release?

I eat mine. Funny story. The Russian River in Northern California once had more Steelhead in it than any other river in the state. Then the do-gooders decided it was being poluted so they mangaged to screw it up and several long standing commercial business went out of business. The biggest loud mouth was touting that mercury was a huge problem and it was the gross poluting business that were at the heart of the problem.

Here's the funny part, this guys house... well it was worth a couple of mil until the local fisherman revealed that it was built on top of a Quicksilver mine!
 

halfmoa

Ensign
Joined
Aug 19, 2011
Messages
955
Re: Eat your catch or release?

I eat just about all the fish I catch that's "eating sized" and throw back some for other reasons. Around here the edibles (for me at least) are mostly bluegill, channel cats, crappie, walleye, stocked rainbow trout, and white bass. The fish I release due to taste are carp, bullhead, and drum. I release "trophy" fish like largemouth bass and musky because most of us around here fish them for sport. I eat all the crawfish I catch with my homemade trap. I beat asian carp to death with the nearest blunt object.
 

rockyrude

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Messages
1,121
Re: Eat your catch or release?

I guess we'd better not talk about what kfa's plants have sucked outta the ground then.
 

jdlough

Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jul 15, 2006
Messages
824
Re: Eat your catch or release?

Eat. So far just Croaker, Catfish, Perch. As soon as I catch a Rockfish, I'll be eating that too.
 
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