Where do grocery store walleyes come from?

[Acemac]

I thought those bigger way North eyes had bones cause they were older for thier size

[trapperdirk]

In Ontario Canada the vast majority of inland lakes the commercial licenses have been bought out by the government . The Great Lakes especially lake Erie are not though . Of course some native bands still hold inland commercial licenses but the monitoring of harvests is nil when it comes to the 6 nations peoples because of all the old treaty issues that are now up for re-negotiation . Then there are also those who net,spear etc . walleye that use the " sustenance " word for commercially harvesting and selling walleye without a commercial license .

Our walleye stocks inland cannot survive any type of commercial harvest whether it's under a commercial licence or the guise of sustenance . For a natives personal freezer yes but no way the wanton way this is occurring at the mouth of rivers and streams as they go up to spawn . Even many bands don't like it but some of the populus is greed driven .

I wouldn't ever buy a walleye fillet out of a store or any private source because who knows how it was harvested or by whom .

As far as farm grown ?. Walleye have been tried in that enviroment and they are not very conducive to it because of their fragile nature and high rate of cannibalism . Stocking fry and protecting stocks from commercial fishing in the inland lakes is the only thing that works .

Am I against natives taking fish for self sustenance ?. ABSOLUTELY NOT but it bothers me that some use it as their right to plunder . There has been enough plundering by us whites when we were not monitored or to some extent restricted .

TD

[itchmesir]

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.

Most restaurants these days probably use Zander in place of Walleye.. it's waaaaaay cheaper than Canadian caught walleye... and like others have said.. you really cannot tell the difference between a Zander fillet and a walleye... last 2 restaurants I have worked for used Zander..

side note.. dumbest complaint from customers "Umm.. my walleye has bones in it" yeah.. it's fish..

[ozzie]

well there is a way to take out the bones prior to preping......why would you serve your clients bones...I won't feed my guests bones in fish.....I have never bought fish from a resteraunt and never will!!

[gatorhunter]

Now for the correct answer to the original question and it's from someone who knows the facts.

If you saw a product in a large food retailer and it was called walleye, then it is almost 100% walleye.

There is a "huge" walleye commercial fishery in Western Canada. The fish comes from smaller lakes with small quotas or from larger lakes with large quotas. Lake Winnipeg, which many FMers are now familiar with, produces approximately 9,000,000 pounds of walleye! Yes, that's 9 million pounds of walleye annually. That is the recorded catch. Fishery managers and Game Wardens believe that the black market is easily as much as the legal market!

The Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation in Winnipeg buys the huge majority of the walleye from the commercial fishers in western Canada. The FFMC ships to U.S., European and Asian markets.

Commercial fishers are permitted to sell to an end consumer so long as the sale is recorded and included in their quota.

To sell to other commercial vendors, commercial fishers must be licenced by the FFMC. Once again, all sales must be accompanied by receipt to make sure that the totals are included in quota.

With respect to the larger fillets that are being seen, Ed Carlson is correct in his statement of a high demand for larger fillets. From the pure business sense, it is also cheaper to process larger fish than a whole bunch of smaller fish. For example, 50 lbs of fillets from 20 inch fish takes a whole bunch more effort than 50 lbs of fillets from 25 - 27 inch fish. Plus, a larger fillet can be sliced thinner and sold as a smaller fillet once the buyer receives his/her purchase.

If your fish is offered for sale in bars, some restaurants, shopping center parking lot, then you'll know that it is almost 100% illegally caught. The quality is very questionable and IT'S BEEN POACHED!

Call your local Game Warden if you suspect any illegal sale of fish.