Do not eat the fish

[Frederico]

I try not to think about this too much - I want to believe that the fish I catch is safe for me to eat. I guess most fish must have some levels of mercury in the flesh. I also think that fish which eat other fish may have higher concentrations than other fish in the same locality (eg: pickerel, bass) also that older fish must have more mercury in them than younger fish.

[dinosaur]

Originally Posted by Dougdad

When in doubt Pumpy contact your local Department of Natural Resources Biologists. They are the gooroos of safe eating so they say LOL

Thanks for clearing that up for me Dino.

No problem, Dougdad. Usually, the DNR will provide you with a guy who knows what he is talking about. You can discern this by talking to him or her at length. Most of them are good guys but they learn a lot from a classroom and not from actual experience. Once you get old, you know that some of the things they tell you are absolute bullcrap because you've seen it firsthand and you know better.

This is why Smokey the Bear was a good guy, then he was removed from circulation and now he's back again. Crap in the woods, don't crap in the woods. Kill the animals, don't kill the animals, kill the animals. Don't take the fish, take the fish over a certain size, take all the fish, take none of the fish. Other than chemical spills, take what you need and leave the rest. Never hunt an area off in its' entirety. Leave something for those who come after you.

I own a large tract of land that I hunt and fish. I have had DNR people tell me that Bluegill cannot winter in 6 feet of water. Why do I have a bluegill fishery that includes a pond that never exceeds six feet? The same people have told me that bluegill will not breed until they are three inches in length. They have also told me that bass will not breed until they have acheived a length of twelve inches. Bullshit!

Like humans, age has more to do with breeding characteristics than size. The people who are teaching you have watched very carefully in a controlled laboratory setting that defies nature. Nature always finds a way and the way to approach your DNR is to figure that they have no clue. They've been watching films and learning things that are absolute nonsense. They're right about a lot of things. They're wrong about a lot of things. That's why they keep changing their minds.

Never trust the government. Their lying.