eating fish from mississippi river?

[fishingnoob763]

I was wondering if fish are safe to eat from there? I heard mix reviews on it. I have caught some decent size channels and my mom likes eating channels. But she wont eat them because she has heard its not safe to eat anything from the river.

So is it safe to eat fish from the Mississippi river?

Thanks

[mrklean]

if it has 2 heads dont eat it

[reinhard1]

personaly i would not eat any fish below the coon rapids dam. just me. and fish above the dam would be small [eaters] if at all. good luck.

[CJH]

I have friends who regularly fish the Miss down around Winona and have always eaten their catches. They haven't sprouted a horn or anything yet.

I wouldn't eat it everyday, however.

[ozzie]

go to the DNR website and they will have any info on consumption from particular bodies of water in the lake finder info

[pushbutton]

Welcome to HSO Teng,

here is the link that ozzie mentioned for rivers.

mn river fish consumption guidelines

as a rule of thumb, i would try to harvest smaller fish, lets say 2lbers for catfish.....

[fishingnoob763]

thanks everyone for posting...I personally don't eat it. I just wanted to let my mom know that its fine. Everything else I get I catch and release.

Thanks for the link.

[Ed Carlson]

Eat smaller fish, this is true off any water, be it a river or a lake.

The larger and older the fish, the greater the potential contaminant load may be.

Smaller fish are better table fair in my opinion too.

[DTro]

from what I've read, drum contain a high amount of bad stuff, especially on P2. I think I would skip it.

[harvey lee]

I have eaten many smaller eyes out of the Sippi. I would not be afraid to eat a few channels as long as they are the smaller ones.

[Sonicrunch]

I have eaten many smaller eyes out of the Sippi. I would not be afraid to eat a few channels as long as they are the smaller ones.

guys, I wouldn't follow Harvey's advice. See his profile pic? Well, he's actually 25 years old. So, well, you know...

[John Mickish]

As stated before, look at the DNRs food consumption reports. Look at some of the "clean" lakes and you will see that they are not that clean and some of the "dirty" water isn't all that dirty.

[pulleye16]

There are plenty of chemicals that the water filteration system can not fully clean before everyones pee goes back into the river. "the pill" is one of them. Just think of how many gallons of toilet water are flushed into the river...then go fishing down in mississippi state and try eating their fish! NO WAY!

[frazwood]

I totally agree that everyone should following the recommendations of the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) which can be found on the DNR's website.

The issue of whether or not a fish is safe to eat depends on only a few chemicals -- the ones that bio-accumulate in the food chain. For the most part, this means PCBs and Mercury, which are pretty much everywhere. The issue then becomes how the local geology and other factors affect the bioaccumulation of these compounds.

What does all of this mean? Some thoughts:

1. Your perception of "clean" has little to do with the safety of eating fish. Some of the lakes in the BWCAW have very high mercury levels!

2. The higher the fish is on the food chain, the more mercury and PCBs it is likely to have. Eating panfish is better than their predators (walleye, bass, pike)

3. Eating smaller fish is better.

4. Where you are in your life is also very important. PCBs and mercury affect reproduction and development. If you done reproducing, you can be a bit more liberal in eating fish.

The other issue is that when the guides say "one meal per week" that is over the long term (i.e., one fish meal per week over the entire year). I don't eat fish more than once or twice a month, so that is also something to consider.

Personally, I'll eat a fish or two a year from the Mississippi. I wouldn't eat a 10-lb channel cat though (like many say above... eat the small ones).

[harvey lee]

Soni, thats not from eating fish.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Personally, I would not eat them. Common sense says otherwise.

I think it's a darn shame that a beautiful river system can be so polluted before it even leaves its home state. That's just not right.

[deadeye]

I don't have a problem with eating fish from there once in a while. Honestly I would rather eat fish from the river than most of the lakes in the metro. Like others have said check out the dnr's consumption advice.

I saw someone mentioned some of the b-dub lakes being worse. That is a real example of what you see isn't always what you get.

If it was that bad to eat fish from the river the entire state of Louisiana would be a bunch of dolphin/human hybrids. With some frogs legs and horns mixed in there at random.

[PierBridge]

As stated before, look at the DNRs food consumption reports. Look at some of the "clean" lakes and you will see that they are not that clean and some of the "dirty" water isn't all that dirty.

Exactly!

I guess I'm flabbergasted at the responses. Of course your mom can eat fish "walleye, panfish" from the river with out any worries what so ever. Heck I'll send her some pool 4 Saugers this fall/winter and she'll LOVE them!

Walleye's and Crappies are very good if prepared properly out of the Mississippi. I think it's more of a mental thing that creeps people out when it comes to eating fish out of the rivers which are cleaner than lakes in general IMO. I'll take moving river water over stagnant lake water a lot of the time.

I haven't looked lately but I wanna say the DNR recommendations are higher for the muddy, dirty looking Minnesota River then the Gull Lake area lakes?

[WaveWacker]

I work with guys from Wis. that are catfish finatics and they eat them all the time (prefer the flatheads). With that said, they are from Wis.

[DTro]

The original title of the post had drum in it, so it must have been edited.

I advise anyone eating drum out of P2 to do a little research and take a look at the PFC's found specifically in sampled drum, and then make your own decisions about eating them

[PierBridge]

Oh I didn't see that.....but yeah Drum wouldn't be on my list of edible tasty River fish to eat.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

I don't have a problem with eating fish from there once in a while. Honestly I would rather eat fish from the river than most of the lakes in the metro. Like others have said check out the dnr's consumption advice.

I saw someone mentioned some of the b-dub lakes being worse. That is a real example of what you see isn't always what you get.

If it was that bad to eat fish from the river the entire state of Louisiana would be a bunch of dolphin/human hybrids. With some frogs legs and horns mixed in there at random.

Inbreeding has the same results on the gene pool as eating fish from the river way down there