Anything at Frenchman's Bay?

[tweedwolfscream]

(07-13-2016 08:24 AM)observer135 Wrote:  When I think of Lake Ontario, I think of excessive pollution and fish that you can not eat.

Am I the only one thinking this? Would you actually eat fish from lake Ontario?
Not trying to hijack this thread, so perhaps you can pm me your thought and replies to avoid hijacking.

Yes I'd eat fish from Lake Ontario, and I have done so, including pike from Frenchman's Bay.

The Guide to Eating Ontario Fish is your friend, if you're worried or just curious about pollution in fish. It has an entry specifically for Frenchman's Bay as well as one for the Toronto Waterfront Area, and other parts of Lake Ontario.

The pattern you'll see from the above links is pretty clear: fatty fish like carp and salmonids have very low recommended consumption levels, while leaner warm-water predators like bass, pike, walleye and panfish have much more liberal ones. The reason is that the plasticky types of contaminants (PCVs etc) that pollute industrialized waters like Lake Ontario tend to accumulate in the fat under fish's skin, so fish without such fat layers don't carry as much of that sort of contamination.

The same does not go for all contaminant types. For lakes up north that you probably think are clean and beautiful, the contaminants to watch out for are heavy metals like mercury (naturally occurring, but sometimes exacerbated by damming and resource extraction), which affects warm-water predators just as much if not more.