After catching a mess of Spanish Mackerel over the weekend, I ended up freezing most of it because of the mercury warnings that Florida posts for all species. It seems that all species are a concern, some more than others.

I would eat fish every day but I really hesitate because of this. I would like to hear from other fishermen who don't heed these warnings and who eat their fish catches often and in large amounts. Have you experienced any symptoms of mercury poisoning?

Funny we were just talking about this yesterday.

I guess twice a week is fine but more might be too much.

Lets see what other think

Getting a check up every 6 month to at least know where you are at is a start. I would like to know at least how many cases out there with mercury poisoning from eating too much fish that has high levels of mercury. It's a good question

Dude I haven't had a checkup in 15+ years

Not going just to hear I'm not even good for spare parts lol

They say that eating fish reduces your chance of heart disease. Since there are too many people in my family with heart problems, and I've never met anyone that had mercury poisoning, I don't worry about it.

I know a commercial guy who eats too much swordfish and got poisoned, but I am skeptical about smaller coastal fish being anywhere near as bad as they say.

mostly bulls**t, especially small spanish macks have almost zero mercury level, I eat fish 3-4 times per week at least and never experienced any problem

only fish that might be a real risk for mercury are big kingfish, tuna and swordfish, but you really need to eat a lot to get intoxicated

if you look at floridas doh site they give the list and for most small fish u can have one too two meals a week. now as far the symptoms of mercury poisoning you wont really see the effects till later its not gonna be like other things over night it has too build up in your system look up the defintion.


http://www.doh.state.fl.us/floridafishadvice/

If your planning on having kids, keep eating fish to a minumum until you do. Mercury has been linked to dozens of birth defects. Avoid big botton fish, Grouper, shark, stuff like that. They will have much higher Mercury content then schoolies. Mercury is cumulative, meaning the more they eat the more Mercury accumulates in their bodies. Sharks for example, you eat a Shark, your consuming most of the Mercury in every fish that Shark ever ate. Same with all big bottom feeders.

Take a look at Japan & the city/town where they eat flipper. I saw the film after James posted it here.... The Cove. Highest count of mercury poisoning in Japan (maybe the world) is the city were they eat dolphins

Talk to Greg, the guy that jigs on the Reward. He thought the same until he got poisoned. His poisoning came from eating kingfish and grouper I think. Talk to him, he will explain.

Whale meat has the highest toxin rate of anything that swims. Most can't legally be sold here because of it. Way over FDA minimums. Due to the ban on Whaling, they started to fill in the gap with Dolphin (Porpose). Let's face it, those people will eat anything that swims. And they keep everything they catch. Sun morning, a guy (One of the ribbon fishers) was going to keep a sea robin another guy caught, I told him it was protected and a 5000 dollar fine if he's caught. Back it went to the strange looks of a few. I quietly explaned if we don't do that there won't be any fish left at Anglens when they get done. Everyone agreed

lol

Greg told me about that, but he also told me he was eating fried kingfish nuggets like they were peanuts over an extended period of time, plus



so that was not a wise choice in my book!
anyway that's another reason why I keep saying that best eating fish are 15 lbs or less

Once all the pollution slowly makes its way to the reefs from big sugar via ground water, I'd be hesitant to eat much in the way of reef fish, period. It's a disaster waiting to happen and there's little to nothing that can be done about it.

Not surprised at that, the Kings are large high-risk fish.

However, around 15 years ago, before I knew about that, someone at work gave away a bunch of huge Kingfish fillets and I went for all of them and ignorantly ate all of them. They were awesome, but...

As I look back, it was just around that same time that I started developing really bad "shaky hands", had no idea why. Coincidence? Thought I was getting Alzheimers or something, even went to a neurologist (who said I didn't have anything to worry about, hmm).

I'm convinced it was the mercury. Anyway, my hands are much better these days, thank God!