Fresh caught fish: Healthy and delicious, but watch your water quality.

Fresh fish should be incorporated into any healthy diet... ok, let's settle down and just say its a very healthy form of protein.  Fish is lean, high in Omega-3 fatty acids (which are great for you and everything), and fairly easily obtained with the right skills and equipment.  Head to a water near you with a fishing pole in hand and collect yourself some of the highest quality protein that can be found.  I have found that the more fish I eat, the more weight I lose and the better I feel.  Besides, bringing home a mess of nice fish that will feed your family several times over just feels good.  Another bonus is that wild fish, or even the government stocked variety, are quite far removed from the industrial food machine.  This is real food, as wild as it gets, and a staple of our ancestors.

 I certainly know it felt good to catch this land locked, Missouri River chinook salmon within 15 minutes of catching the 26" walleye pictured below.  Those fish fed us many times, and they sure taste after some time in the smoker or frying pan.  

However, it is wise to be aware of the quality of the water that  your fish dinner comes from.  Heavy metals like mercury and arsenic and industrial chemicals like PCBs are your main cause for concern.  These pollutants accumulate in the flesh of fish, and large predators near the top of the food chain, like many game fish, have the highest concentrations.  Tthey've spent their entire lives absorbing the contaminants that accumulated in the fish they eat.  Urban industrial areas and waters downstream of mining activities are most likely to be high in these pollutants. Find out if any of your waters have high levels of pollutants.  You may want to eat less fish, keep only smaller fish, or not eat the fish at all.

Mercury can occur naturally in waters, usually in fluctuating lakes or large wetlands.  There is a small amount of mercury in all living things, and when lake waters rise killing large swaths of vegetation, mercury levels can also rise.  The mercury that accumulated over long periods of time in the soils and vegetation works its way up the food chain of the lake, accumulating in fish.  This phenomenon is not caused by pollution, but one should still be aware of local waters where this may be an issue. 

In the rivers of the midwest and great plains, where agricultural runoff predominates, high fecal bacteria levels may be seen, but these are not of great cause for concern.  Wash your hands when your done fishing and cook your fish thoroughly and you should be fine.  The bacteria does not effect the fish flesh.

For any information on the condition of your state's waters and fish life, contact your state environmental or game and fish agency.