Fish Consumption Advisory

[Slimer]

Anticipating a lot of flack with this post, but what’s everyone’s take on eating trout/salmon out of Lake Ontario? 
 

Per NYS guidelines, I've eaten a years worth since putting the boat in last month. I’ve read posts saying that when NYS tests the fish, they grind it all and test that. I’m not eating the skin, grey meat or any belly meat. Is this just a way to self justify eating more than advised? 
 

*Note - I’m primarily catch and release. Not killing every fish that touches my boat.

[rolmops]

There is research out there testing a target group of people. The group eats great lakes fish all the time and it seems that those folks are doing just fine.

On the other hand , a lot of opinions on this site may be guided by professional interest. What do expect a charter boat captain to say?

[lumberjohn]

You prepare your fish just as I do. That is all you can do. What you have remaining i feel very comfortable consuming.

[GAMBLER]

8 hours ago, rolmops said:

There is research out there testing a target group of people. The group eats great lakes fish all the time and it seems that those folks are doing just fine.

On the other hand , a lot of opinions on this site may be guided by professional interest. What do expect a charter boat captain to say?

I was one of the test group last time they did this research.  ALL of my levels for contaminants were well below average.  Proper filet methods and keeping smaller to medium sized fish for consumption are ways to lessen the contamination levels in Lake Ontario fish.  When they did the study, I grilled the lady heading the project.  She was more than willing to answer every question I asked her.  They grind the entire fish or testing for contaminants.  They do this because some people use the entire fish for consumption.  I filet trout and salmon, trim the fat and take the skin off.  I grill mine in a grill basket so fats and oils drip out of the filet into the bottom of my grill and not stay in the filet.  

[tenatureboy]

Many years ago I may have done a thesis project analyzing the mirex and other contamination levels in salmon as a time point for a study starting in the 70s. While levels were still present they were decreasing with time. This was before the zebra mussel era so I am sure more changes have happened. To do the studies there was a “standard fillet process” for consistency.
 

Either way my take home over the years has been I eat salmon first (lower fat levels and shorter lived) then rainbows if they can’t be revived and I skip browns and lakers again unless they can’t be revived.

 

To add I spent many years in bio tech and food ingredient quality and I will say I am going to die of cancer from many other things our society has done to make things cheaper tastier and less nutritious than the salmon from lake O I eat once or twice a month!

Edited May 3 by tenatureboy

[HB2]

Actually don't eat those nasty fish from the lake.  

 

Better off going to Golden Corral or Mickey D's and eating all you want of that and wash it down with a diet soda . There's no chemicals with adverse effects in that   . There's some healthy food right there. 

 

But seriously  folks , fillet the like Brian said . 

[Yankee Troller]

On 5/1/2025 at 6:49 AM, GAMBLER said:

I was one of the test group last time they did this research.  ALL of my levels for contaminants were well below average.  Proper filet methods and keeping smaller to medium sized fish for consumption are ways to lessen the contamination levels in Lake Ontario fish.  When they did the study, I grilled the lady heading the project.  She was more than willing to answer every question I asked her.  They grind the entire fish or testing for contaminants.  They do this because some people use the entire fish for consumption.  I filet trout and salmon, trim the fat and take the skin off.  I grill mine in a grill basket so fats and oils drip out of the filet into the bottom of my grill and not stay in the filet.  

 

That grills gotta smell amazing 

[Slimer]

Thank you everyone! 

[Flanman]

I wanted to chime in here - I don't post a lot, just occasionally. If anyone eats farm raised salmon, farm raised shrimp or farm raised catfish outside of the US they are eating contaminates far greater than what is found in the trout and salmon in Lake Ontario. Plus the LO fish are "wild" in the sense that they are actually free to swim where ever they want and eat whatever they want. My buddy is in the USAF and he flies over southeast Asia all the time and he told me "man, whatever you do, don't eat farm raised anything from SE Asia because the pens where they grow the fish/shrimp are literally a few hundred yards down from the sewage plants. It's disgusting. The amount of crap they put into farm raised atlantic salmon is crazy and that doesn't even include what they are doing to the environment and the wild stocks of fish, which are in trouble. 

I had Ernie Laintagne (sp) from Fish Doctor Charters tell me one time that he saw a report from Brockport back in the early 00s that did a study on the fish the proper way and they could not find anything over .08ppm contaminants - Wegmans can legally sell fish that has up to 2.0ppm!  

I am not advocating you eat a 30 year old laker - but smaller browns, cohos, and kings should be more than fine to eat and its healthier than what you get in the store (unless you are buying wild caught alaskan salmon). 

Flanman

[ChrisS]

Everything in moderation. Contaminant levels are far lower than they have been thanks to a lot of work by people in government, industry, and research. There are no "safe" concentrations of these chemicals and no organization is going to claim that there is (liability). At least with EPA, they calculate risk based using an algorithm that shows what the approximate increased risk of cancer is for a general population over, IIRC, twenty years. Not everyone has the same tolerance for risk as someone else. These days, I have no problem smoking a few lake kings every year, but I'm not going to subsist on them. Fish in the 1970s? I probably would have skipped them altogether.

 

And a single data point is just that, a single data point, so I don't put much weight in someone's anecdote. Not everyone has the same susceptibility as someone else. There's a lot of variability and variables that can't be accounted for in studies, which is why researchers use a large enough sample population and look for statistically significant trends. Children and women of child bearing age should probably be a bit more careful with how much they consume just because of the development aspect. Some 65 year old dudes who smoked, drank 30 packs, and ate more red meat than an Oklahoma cowboy are probably going to be done in by something other than a few fish.

[13owhunter]

Great info here.  Totally makes sense.  What doesn't make sense is how scary the state guidelines are.  Love to see a new study based on prepared fillets with some verbiage that doesn't  discourage folks from eating fish from our waters.  I would think that a lot of people would interpret "only 1 serving a month" as "these things are full of contaminants."

 

 

[Al-slamminhogs]

Personally I would stay away from the trout species due to the fact they live longer and make runs in the streams that are often polluted such as Burt dam .. I personally only keep young cohos chinooks and atlantic

[Delicious Fishous]

I would think Browns and Lakers would be suspect. Not so much salmon and (to a lesser extent) bows.

 

Anything that eats gobies is taking in concentrated toxins filtered out of the lake water by the zebra mussels the gobies eat.

 

Browns and (especially) lakers hang out in the goby zone much more often, and fatten up snacking on goby morsels.

Even with those, I would guess cutting the fat out of the filets would get rid of most of the harmfiul stuff...

 

Not specific to Lake O, finger lakes or anything else would have similar issues - anywhere with fish that eat the mussels.

[GAMBLER]

16 minutes ago, Delicious Fishous said:

I would think Browns and Lakers would be suspect. Not so much salmon and (to a lesser extent) bows.

 

Anything that eats gobies is taking in concentrated toxins filtered out of the lake water by the zebra mussels the gobies eat.

 

Browns and (especially) lakers hang out in the goby zone much more often, and fatten up snacking on goby morsels.

Even with those, I would guess cutting the fat out of the filets would get rid of most of the harmfiul stuff...

 

Not specific to Lake O, finger lakes or anything else would have similar issues - anywhere with fish that eat the mussels.

Lakers are the worst out of the salmonoids on Lake Ontario due to their age.  Most kings live less than 4 years.  Lakers can live a long time.  The 34.06lb laker we caught in 2012 was 27 years old.  Lots of years absorbing chemicals than any other trout and salmon species we catch in Lake Ontario.  

[mr 580]

This topic came up at last years State of Lake Erie meeting so this year a representative from NYS Dept of Health put on a presentation at the recent meeting for Lake Erie at Woodlawn Beach.  The lady said they routinely test and for game fish they get fillets from NYSDEC.  Other than providing the fish and fillets the DEC is out of the process.  They try to test in a manner that is consistent with the way people consume the fish.  Some smaller fish are ground up.  Worst fish for contaminants were carp and sheepshead.  Overall their contaminants levels have gone down a bit over the years.  Dept of Health handles Lake Ontario too and she had that info as well.  Thought the DEC did the right thing by inviting the Health Department.  

[Apparition]

Not sure if this is helpful, but I collected lots of fish from Lake Erie harbors in Ohio a few years ago also collected fish for the USEPA for 5 year snap shots of the lake.

 

Most of the mercury was attributed to coal power plants in the west (Illinois and Indiana) and the airborne mercury was blown to Ohio .  The levels were going down due to better scrubbers on the coal plants.

 

During my testing PCB was rising.  The belief was that we were doing so many cleanups that we stirred things up and made it available again.  It was expected to be reduced with time.

 

There is a lot of variables in collection.  Fillets, skin on fillets, ground whole fish.

 

Fatty fish (carp) were worse.  Lean small fish that eat a good amount of bugs.... like perch were better.

 

Also think about how much a fish eats up the food chain. I don't know feed conversion for salmon.....maybe 10# of bait per # of salmon?  That is 10x the contaminants levels of it bioaccumulates.

[rolmops]

On 5/6/2025 at 11:42 AM, 13owhunter said:

Great info here.  Totally makes sense.  What doesn't make sense is how scary the state guidelines are.  Love to see a new study based on prepared fillets with some verbiage that doesn't  discourage folks from eating fish from our waters.  I would think that a lot of people would interpret "only 1 serving a month" as "these things are full of contaminants."

 

 

I think that the DEC does proper testing and when they come up with the results, they are correct. Next, they compare these results to national standards and draw their conclusions which are published. I am not sure that commercial companies with a financial interest are as conscientious as the DEC.  The fish farming lobby is interested in selling their product. The DEC has no such interest

Edited 14 hours ago by rolmops