At the request of one of my fellow posters, I've started a thread on the subject of eating fish.

"I like Perch, I like fishing for Perch and sometimes I even eat the odd Perch. Would someone care to explain to me, what the problem is, without resorting to abuse? I can be pretty colourful myself so let's not start down that path.
A simple 'why' would suffice."

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zanders better
dave.

don't see why not as long as the water allows it and they taste ok.

perch are meant to be very good eating, there used to be a commercial fishery for them in windermere i believe.

as long as our predation doesn't damage the stock balance then I don't see what the issue is.

it's just another version of the old "should I eat carp" debate. You do what's normal in yer mannor, carp are bread for the table in many countries, as they originally were here, but much as I'd never eat a 3lb perch unless there were dozens of them, i wouldn't eat a 30lb carp either (and if i did it'd have to spend alot of time in running water first.

I've had carp in prague (they have it like we have turkey at christmas) and pike and zander in the UK. pike are great if you can deal with the bones (which are lethal), can't actually remember the zander, but in both cases the fish were smaller specimens, the zander was about 2lb and i've had a few pike all under 5lb.

don't eat chub, they taste crap apparently.

This post has been edited by phil dean: Apr 8 2006, 09:38 PM

Can't remember who, but somebody once said 'Chub taste like cotton wool full of needles'

Don't think it was Gordon Ramsey!

I've eaten just about every native freshwater fish in the UK (in which I include Carp and Crucian Carp).

The only ones I would bother with again are perch, zander, grayling, trout, char, river caught roach and bream, gudgeon, small bleak (cooked like whitebait) and carp.

I prefer to eat the smaller fish rather than the more mature specimens.

I think the problem is that if everyones belly rumbled and mouth began to water when they saw a 2lb+ perch in the landing net there wouldn't be to many left on certain venues.

To put this to the test, would you proudly hold up a dead 3lb'er and show it to the bailiff on the Great Ouse for instance, expecting congratulations and the sharing of a few recipes? I'd be inclined to think the fish would be banged on the head when no one is looking and swiftly hidden away in your bag.

I'm seriously starting to feel like the odd one out in the wonderful world of fishing. It seemed like every week fishing the local river over the winter months someone was telling me to eat this, give them that or throw them up the bank mate.

Back in the days when I was the youngest member of a fishing club, we had one old boy who would always take a couple of decent perch home for the table. He reckoned they were top nosh.
I've fancied trying it myself for a while but they're always either to small to bother with or to big to just knock on the head for the table.
Pike are well worth a go though and if you look on the web, there are plenty of US sites with fileting instructions so that you can avoid the bones - not that I very often take one for the pot.

Morally there is no problem with eating any fish you choose to, but practically Sharkbyte's right.

Unless it was very well regulated stock levels would take a hammering, the reality of it is there's too many fishermen.

Incidentally, in times past the Salmon came second best - culinary wise - to Pike & Perch, & of course the Gudgeon was quite the delicacy.

Come on for christs sake! its 2006 not 1936 the war has finished and decent food is plentyfull, if you want to eat freshwater fish then but farmed carp or trout or any of the thousands of imported fish seen on market stools in London.

if you've ever had wild salmon or trout, you'll know that the farmed fish are not a patch on them.

as i mentioned, it would depend on the fishery rules, but it would also depend on taking a sensible approach however, if factory farming were banned tomorrow, it wouldn't take another war for people to start looking at the food rescources under their noses. They can happily start with the rabbits in my field.