Where do grocery store walleyes come from?

[MuskieJunkie]

Anyone know details on how walleyes end up in the grocery store isles? I saw one yesterday that was must have been a 26 or 28" fish, single bonless filet that wieghed 2.2 lbs. The package said wild caught product of canada. It just kind of shocked me to see a trophy fish like that in a freezer case. Does canada allow commercial netting of walleyes?

[RebelSS]

Don't know how else they'd get in the store, except through commercial fishing. Yes, Canada does commercial gill-netting of wild waldos...the nets used must have no smaller than a 3 1/2" opening, according to Canadian law. This is where 99% of your "Store walleye" (and herring) come from.

[SkitterPopper]

I am no expert on the subject. I have noticed on most of the packaging that it says northern Canada. There are lakes up there that are not even touched. They have lakes that produce natural walleyes and no stocking is needed. If you don't have any pressure on the lake except the commercial guys I would imagine that you could pull a lot out and not hurt the population. Just think how many fish would be in Mille Lacs if nobody fished it. This is just a guess.

[goblueM]

commercial netting from native tribes is a big contributor. i've seen firsthand the nets on extremely remote reservations in northern Ontario and Manitoba

[BobT]

I would also suspect farm raised.

[mrklean]

i remember when i worked at a restaurant back in the day the walleye fillets we would get frozen monsters

[DTro]

I've heard that a lot of them come from Red Lake (Canada).

[bobbymalone]

lake winnipeg is a major commercial fishery for walleye

[MN Mike]

Something I saw a while ago.

[Redline]

I've seen nets on Lake of the Woods in the Sioux Narrows area.

[Ed Carlson]

There has been a disturbing trend to market larger walleye under the category of Walleye Loins. These are large fish, even trophy fish. Some areas do it because there is a market for them here in the USA. To stop it, just don't buy it. No demand then no efforts will be made to target and harvest them. I seen this market on the grow in recent years in Canada.

Pollock is also often passed off as Walleye and many people do not know or care if there is a difference. Not walleye but often labeled as such. Often these are larger fillets too.

[reinhard1]

yes, Ed i used to call that Alaskan walley a few years back. some of the fillets were as big as the walley i kept as eaters. i agree, just dont buy it. normaly the netted stuff from canada come with skin on and smaller walleys. good luck.

[jwmiller33]

wouldnt be surprised if sometimes the "walleye" you are served in a restaurant is zander. I heard of some restaurants getting busted for having walleye on the menu when it was actually zander.

[reinhard1]

zander is a walleye, but only in germany. pretty much the same thing. it is in the perch family. looks like a walley and should taste like a walley. they also can get to a good size as well. there was some confusion for some time but a walley is pretty much a zander, with only the name the difference along with some coloration difference. but you are right, i would know a zander is a walleye but most over here do not and could get confused. good luck.

[Big Tom]

I never eat any that I didn't catch. Just rubs me the wrong way.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

zander is a walleye, but only in germany. pretty much the same thing. it is in the perch family. looks like a walley and should taste like a walley. they also can get to a good size as well. there was some confusion for some time but a walley is pretty much a zander, with only the name the difference along with some coloration difference. but you are right, i would know a zander is a walleye but most over here do not and could get confused. good luck.

walleye and zander are two genetically different species.

[reinhard1]

they are closely related. yes tecnicaly they are a different species but put them next to each other and they look very much alike. they are both in the perch/pike family. the sauger is also a different species but i woulnt scoff at eating a fillet from a sauger either. good luck.

[delcecchi]

I think that was Tavern on Grand selling Zander as Walleye.

If you look at some of those lakes like Winnipeg and Red Lake Ontario they are so huge that allowing commercial fishing makes sense.

[jwmiller33]

I think that was Tavern on Grand selling Zander as Walleye.

If you look at some of those lakes like Winnipeg and Red Lake Ontario they are so huge that allowing commercial fishing makes sense.

ya you are right. Even though I'm sure zander tastes very similar to walleye, you can't be having walleye on the menu and telling your guests it is fresh walleye when it is in fact zander.... In today's day and age, you're going to get into trouble for that

[Sherpa]

I googled the Tavern On Grand thing and came up with an article from 2004 about a test that was done on TC area restaurants and the "walleye" they served. They sent samples to a lab and found that 6 restaurants were serving zander and 7 were actually walleye. Tavern On Grand was actually walleye according to the tests. I was glad to read that because my grandma loves the walleye there.

[reinhard1]

in europe the zander is just as much prized as a game fish and for it's eating quality as the walley is here. i agree the labeling should be correct, however if someplace has zander on the menue i would order it. good luck.

[goblueM]

it'd be hard to find a place that has NOT sold mislabeled fish. Folks can't really tell the difference at the table, and restaurants who get their food from large suppliers are at the mercy of labeling. Plenty of deception going on there - pretty easy to substitute a fish that looks and tastes similar to a more expensive species and boost your profit margin

[PurpleFloyd]

Face it. In Minnesota if the average Joe went into a restaurant and had an appetite for fish and saw Zander on the menu how many would instantly think " Boy, that is very similar to walleye so lets go with that"?

My guess is less than a handful out of 100 people would know so in the end the name just makes customers familiar with what the fish will look and taste like. That being said and asterisk stating that the walleye may be substituted for the similar Zander might be a good thing too.

[reinhard1]

i dont know about resturants, however when it comes to retail labeling on products as far as seafood and fresh water fish the inspectors were not easy on you if they found fish that were not labeled properly. country of origin was one of the most importent "new" regs that came about prior to my retirement. there was a $10,000 fine possible if violations occurr.

in my opinion most resturants dont want their names in the news for selling products that were labeled improperly. not saying it doesnt happen, but you dont stay in buisness long. good luck.

[jwmiller33]

Face it. In Minnesota if the average Joe went into a restaurant and had an appetite for fish and saw Zander on the menu how many would instantly think " Boy, that is very similar to walleye so lets go with that"?

My guess is less than a handful out of 100 people would know so in the end the name just makes customers familiar with what the fish will look and taste like. That being said and asterisk stating that the walleye may be substituted for the similar Zander might be a good thing too.

EXACTLY! RH1, I'm not disputing the taste of zander at all. I'm sure it is excellent. My point is, of nearly all the people I know who don't know what zander is but like to eat walleye, none of them would order "zander" off a menu if we went out to eat somewhere, but they would order walleye. Restaraunts that advertise walleye when it is indeed zander are taking advantage of false advertising. Regardless of the frequency of this, it is wrong.

[goblueM]

i dont know about resturants, however when it comes to retail labeling on products as far as seafood and fresh water fish the inspectors were not easy on you if they found fish that were not labeled properly. country of origin was one of the most importent "new" regs that came about prior to my retirement. there was a $10,000 fine possible if violations occurr.

in my opinion most resturants dont want their names in the news for selling products that were labeled improperly. not saying it doesnt happen, but you dont stay in buisness long. good luck.

I'm aware of labeling reqs, the sad thing is that they don't do much for ya. And I believe the label laws do not apply to restaurants, only commercial operations

http://www2.fisheries.com/archive/students/jjacquet/tradesecrets.pdf

its very widespread, whenever there is a DNA study of fish they find a ton of mis-labeled fish

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011...escolar-grouper

"In most of the citations, escolar masqueraded as tuna, tilapia stood in for red snapper, panga and emperor fillets were on menus as grouper, and imitation crab meat replaced authentic crab.

Even with more vigilant consumers and inspectors, mislabeling continues to plague the restaurant industry. For example, a Nova Southeastern University genetics class this semester tested fish advertised as white tuna from 10 sushi restaurants in Broward, Miami Dade and Palm Beach counties. The results showed eight were improperly labeled, said Professor Mahmood Shivji. A similar study last fall involving 10 restaurants in South Florida and Orlando, showed all 10 served escolar that was sold as white tuna."

A study in Manhattan found 14 of 56 samples were not the species the label claimed

http://phe.rockefeller.edu/mislabeledfish/Mislabelled%20fish.pdf

[swamptiger]

I think most of the walleye in the grocery stores comes from Canada and is wild netted fish, but there's probably also a good market for farmed fish if it's marketed properly.

From ohio4h.org:

Quote:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- People like the taste of perch raised in Ohio's farm ponds just as well as their wild-caught counterparts, according to an Ohio State University study published in the Journal of Food Science.

That's good news for Ohio's fish farmers, but the fact that taste-testers didn't rank their product higher than the others they tried means they'll need to find another marketing niche, researchers say.

In Ohio, the aquaculture industry has grown from $1.8 million in sales in 1998 to $3.2 million in 2005. Those figures may grow in the future, as concerns about overfishing wild stocks on a global level could lead to collapse of those fisheries by mid-century.

Most of the perch raised on Ohio's fish farms supplies restaurants and grocery stores, as well as churches and other organizations that hold fish fries. In 2003, both commercial fishers of yellow perch in Lake Erie and the aquaculture industry faced some unexpected competition from a flood of imported fish from Turkey and other European countries. Although it was called "Turkish yellow perch," the species, officially called "zander," (Stizostedion lucioperca) is unrelated to the yellow perch caught and raised in Ohio (Perca flavescens).

"That's what got us started on this study," said Jeannine Delwiche, Ohio State University Extension specialist in the Department of Food Science and Technology and head of the department's Sensory Science Group. Delwiche also holds an appointment with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC).

"First, we wanted to tell if consumers could tell the different types of fish apart," Delwiche said. "Then we wanted to determine if they liked one fish better than the others."

Two years ago, Delwiche published a similar study comparing wild-caught and farm-raised yellow perch. Also published in the Journal of Food Science, that study found that consumers could distinguish between the two, but there was no statistical difference in their preference of one over the other.

In the current study, Delwiche conducted two experiments with a total of 118 volunteers who ate and evaluated pieces of fish -- battered and deep-fried -- in the department's Sensory Evaluation Laboratory. They were not told which types of fish they were eating. She asked consumers to compare the farm-raised yellow perch to three of its main competitors: wild-caught zander, wild-caught ocean perch (Sebastes marinus, a saltwater species also unrelated to the fresh-water yellow perch), and wild-caught walleye (Stizostedion vitreum).

In the first experiment, in which 50 consumers volunteered, each fillet was cut into 1.2 x 1.2 inch pieces. The thickness of each piece varied significantly depending on the thickness of the fillet, and Delwiche worried that such a difference could affect results. So, she repeated the experiment, this time with 68 volunteers, with more uniform-sized pieces.

As in the previous study, the judges in both experiments could distinguish farm-raised yellow perch, rating it as "slightly different" from the other types of fish. When asked how much they liked each fish, zander ranked the highest and walleye, the lowest, although those differences weren't statistically different from the likability rating given to farm-raised perch, Delwiche said.

"We may have seen more differences if we had served baked or broiled fish instead of the battered and fried," Delwiche said. "By preparing the fish in this manner, we may have hidden subtle flavor differences. But this is how most consumers eat this type of fish."

Geoff Wallat, a senior research associate in aquaculture with OARDC, based at Ohio State University South Centers in Piketon, assisted in Delwiche's studies and works with fish farmers throughout the state.

"This study tells me that cultured (farm-raised) perch stands up very well against its competitors," Wallat said. "On the flip side, it also showed that cultivated perch didn't stand out far and above the other types of fish. Because of that, what the industry needs to do is figure out how to distinguish its product from its competitors." He suggests focusing on the fact that the farm-raised product offers a reliable supply of a high-quality product, in which water quality, feeding and husbandry practices are controlled using best management practices.

"A lot of producers of cultured yellow perch are marketing directly to church groups or the local fire hall who hold regular fish fries," Wallat said. "And a lot of them find that once they taste it, they come back. It's a good-quality product."

The studies were funded from grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service.

According to the 2005 Census of Aquaculture by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, the Ohio aquaculture industry raises fish as food, sport fish, bait fish, ornamental fish and crustaceans. Fish grown for food in Ohio grew in value from $648,000 in 1998 to $923,000 in 2005. Most are grown in farm ponds but some are raised in large indoor tanks.

Globally, aquaculture now accounts for up to 43 percent of worldwide supplies of fish, up from 30 percent in 2004 and 27 percent in 2002, according to an advance copy of the State of World Aquaculture: 2006 report issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

[reinhard1]

i agree. maby resturants should explain what a zander is with a short discription and a picture and they would sell a lot of it. personaly i like perch the best for frying. why? can i tell the differnce between the walley and perch fillet as far as taste? honestly i cant, just in my head maby. who knows what the wholesale cost for imported zander is vs walley from canada. that may play a part in what's on the menu as well as people asking "what is a zander". when i was a kid in germany i think we ate more eel than zander. there were plenty and easy to catch. good luck.

[kg2]

I refuse to buy fish in restaurants other than catfish. I refuse to buy fish in grocery stores other than pollock or "fish sticks" during lent. If I want to eat fish, I go catch some fresh panfish. Perhaps I am just spoiled?

[reinhard1]

this past winter was the first time i bought fish from a grocery store that i can remember. it was talapia and i must say i wasn't bad. i have always eaten what i have caught. i have grown fond of eelpout in the last two years and will try my hand at fresh catfish this year. if i dont get any salmon this year out of superior i will have no problem buying the wild salmon from alaska which comes frozen for smoking. good luck.