Ohio Saugeye

[crappiefrank]

I only fished the ohio river 2 times in my life and was not happy with the pollution, have been told not to eat anything that comes out of there.

Yet I have a friend that says it is cleaner then Berlin reservoir?????
and he and two other friends caught 84 saugeye-walleye combination and released all but the 10 apiece that is allowed and he constantly eats the fish from that river???????

What do you think-Safe to eat??? or no ???

[BuckSlayer]

Most saugeye have been recently released into the river probably within the last 10 years and because they are mostly surface feeding fish I would say they are safe to eat and def more safe than any catfish or bottom dweller in the river...I dont think the DNR would allow people to eat river fish if they were unsafe....last year at the greenup locks and dam near wheelersburg,oh I seen 2 chinese women and 2 chinese men take at least 7 five gallon buckets FULL of white bass...makes you wonder where they were going with all those..

[Ohio Sportsman]

Check with your local Health Dept on any advisories when it comes to eating fish, just about every body of water has some type of limitations on how much you can eat and how often.

[walleyefan]

Here is the link that I have bookmarked for the regs set the Ohio EPA. I had to have a lot of the Water licenses for work.

just click the language you prefer and it will open up in adobe.

http://www.epa.state.oh.us/dsw/fishadvisory/index.html

I usually eat at least three/four times from the freezer every month for our Lake Erie catches.

[deerhunt45]

You would have to eat fish 5 days out of the week for the rest of your life to accumulate the toxic levels the "advisory" is based on.

I tend to shy away from bottom feeding fish on certain waterbodies based on the advisorys (the bottom sediment is where the the heavy metals accumulate), however, if you thoroughly clean the fish of any fat and "veins" (I fillet and "zipper" my fish as applicable) and limit your intake to sensible levels, you are greatly cutting (pun intended) your exposure and it aint gonna kill ya.

Let me tell ya, we are cutting our pollution to Ohio's waterways everyday. It is a slow process but it is working.

45

[walleyefan]

Deerhunt45 - you sure are right on the Ohio waterways cleaning up. 30 years of working in a municipal water plant on the river there has been a big drop in the pollution levels. Aside from the occasional accidental spill.

There has been a big gain in the number and size of the game fish that I have taken and seen taken out of the Ohio in the pool we leave in. The saugeye, sauger and walleye can be taken from the small to the largest, I have taken out a
26 1/2" walleye last year.