Concerning scent from Walleyes-Miss River

Im a bit concerend by the following…..

Last year I kept a nice “eater sized” Walleye from the Mississippi, when I cleaned the fish it had a strong odor, something like a petrolium-oil-gassy smell, it was quite strong. I ate the fish and it tasted fine. Fast Forward to 3 weeks ago, I kept 4 Walleyes from a lake in the St. Cloud area, when cleaning them I noticed NO smell like last years Miss Walleye, they too ate great. Yesterday I was fising the Miss and kept 2 Saugers, again when cleaning them I noticed that very unique patrolium smell, but again the table faire was excellent.

Note: that the 1 Mississippi Wallaye, and 2 Saugers were from different pools.

Has aonyone else noticed this smell from Mississipi Walleye/Sauger? It has me somewhat concerend.

Thoughts?

-Dave

just a thought about this. Are you sure that your water intake doesnt have a leak that is pulling in bilge water from your boat bottom. Not sure but if your pulling in the water in the bottom of your boat and it can be oily and gassy in the bottom of boats, then that may be the reason.

just a thought

FISHINFOOL

I have cleaned walleyes and saugers from pool#4 and haven’t had any smell or bad taste. I know a guy from my fishing club that said he used to fish pool #4 in the early 80’s and he said they smelled and tasted like diesel fuel, so he quit fishing there. I know the state has cleaned that part of the river in the last 25 years. Where are you getting these fish? I also had some fish from the rainy river that smelled and tasted bad in the late 90’s from the paper plant dumping something in the river. The lake walleyes tasted fine, but the river eyes you could smell as soon as they came out of the water. The rainy has been cleaned up as well. I have been up there the last several years, and the smell in the fish is gone.

Nope never had that smell, but i’ve been eatin em for my 50 some years, so my sense of smell might be shot, although i’ve fished with friends who smelt more like a porta potty, dam wind

Walleyes that came from the Fox River in DePere had that smell.That was in the mid 90s.I kept 3 smaller ones once,that was it for me.The smell/taste was terrible.Even the neighborhood raccoons/skunks did not care for them Someone told me to soak them in milk overnight to get rid of the taste.

although i’ve never kept a fish outta the Fox cause we were always on a trophy run and couldn’t keep the eaters, we did go a little bit farther north (not gonna mention the river) and pounded the fish big uns and eaters – so we thought, and those fish just stunk the ones we cleaned, we sorry to say we threw them away ick, never have i had fish that smelled like that and we never went back to that river

I keep fish out of the Croix, Pool 3 and Pool 4 on regular basis’. I’ve never noticed any smell at all. Not saying you didn’t smell something but I never have.

I was not talkin about the croix or the miss

I agree the fish have a smell also…people I talk to have not notice this, but they have ate fish out of the river for years so maybe this is not noticed by them. I don’t keep fish very often out of the river for this very reason, when I do the fish soak for a few days and the water is changed several times.
I keep fish out of lakes and the smell is not there from lakes in southern WI where I keep most my fish, to me they also tastes better.
Some may think we are crazy, but lake fish taste much better.

I also agree Mississippi R. fish may have a smell to them. I have tried to eat both walleyes and saugers from the Croix and P4. I noticed a strange smell from both watersheds…Not sure what is was but stange non the less. They were also on the mushy side as well.

I am a little spoiled because I am used to Canadian walleyes so my bar is set pretty high.

I don’t keep many fish. But I’ve never noticed a smell from any that I’ve cleaned. I don’t eat fish, but the wife and oldest son do. The only comment I’ve got from them is once or twice they said a fish tasted “muddy”. That covers the MN river and pools 3 and 4 for the last 15 years or so.

Thats just flavor to the High Life man…
Soak them in pine sol and they’ll taste just like bass.

One thought to put in the hat is primary forage/food source. That may play in scent. I know it plays a card in fillet color.

-Boogs

I think that happened to me when I kept a gut hooked white bass. I’ll send Joel from the DNR an email and see if he has some insight.

I have never had them smell bad, but walleyes from the river are not good eating. IMO, it is not the taste, it is the texture and it is mushy. I think it is from all the shad they eat. Heck a Pool 4 walleye eats mostly shad and they grow quick. Shad are an oily sinky minnow.

At what time of year are you guys noticing the smell, mushy, muddy taste? I pretty much only keep fish when the water temp is below 55 and have never noticed any symptoms. It may be a fallacy, but I think the meat from all species is firmer, cooks better, and tastes better from cold water.

I eat walleyes/saugers out of the river at least once a week have so for years, I’ve never noticed a smell of the meat, I bleed out the fish so when there cleaned no blood is in the meat, I have however notice that when checking the stomach contents once in awhile I come accross a stinky one but I just figure its something there foraging on just my .02

Think you may have hit it on the head with what the fish are eating. Walleyes from the river below the twin cities taste muddy to me. From above the twin cities like the Mississippi river in Aitkin they taste fine. Think the big difference is I do not believe shad are there main food source up there.

A lot of walleyes are kept out of pool 3, 4 and so one so those fish cant taste all bad to everyone.

The miss walleye are quite a bit different than lake walleye. Miss river walleye have a strong odor and if you look under the skin, you will see a layer of redish gray between the meat and the skin. This is what is causing the odor, it is NASTY stuff, and you should cut it off before eating. White bass, catfish, and walleye all have it here. Even the 12-13″ sauger have it.

I kept 18 walleye from a lake in the st. cloud area this summer (horseshoe lake) and none of them had the redish gray stuff and they all smelled (and tasted) really clean.

never noticed any difference from canadian eyes to miss eyes other than the meet isn’t as white. figure forage base.

I’ve eaten the walleyes and sauger from pools 4, 5, 5a, 8, yada, yada, yada all my life and have never heard or seen this. I have read that Canadian waters are full of mercury, so I’ll eat my Mississippi fish and save the travel $$$ for another trip to Hawaii.

Hawaiian fish aren’t exactly mercury free either.

More than you wanted to know about Mercury in Hawiian fish<<<

Here’s my best guess on the subject. I’m guessing it is forage related (gizzard shad). Seems unlikely that it would be fuel spill related since it had the smell, but no off taste. It’s not uncommon for fish to get off flavors or smells, and is quite common for people to complain about fish from rivers. I attribute most of that to gizzard shad. Gizzard shad can survive in cold water, but aren’t terribly excited about it. So they (especially smaller ones) may be having a hard time right now and the predators may be gorging themselves on weak and dying shad. Shad are VERY oily and if they are already dead, are starting to decay before a fish even picks it up for a meal. Those rotten decay gases could be contributing to a nasty smell. Mississippi River fish upstream of Coon Rapids Dam should not experience the same thing as shad are not established upstream of the dam.

If it smells funny but tastes fine, probably no big deal. Biggest thing for taste of freshwater fish is to cut off the fat and cut out the red meat. Those areas will concentrate off flavors. Soaking fish in milk is supposed to help with off flavors too. I can’t find a scientific answer to that, but it is something I do with most of my fish. Maybe someone should email Alton Brown to get the answer to that one. I use milk to wash my hands after handling hot peppers too.

Here is an interesting link about off flavors in fish. Looks like it doesn’t take much diesel fuel to produce off flavors in a lake or pond situation (1-2 gallons/10 acres).
https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/getFactSheet/whichfactsheet/33/

Joel

Certainly no shortage of shad on P-4 right now.

There was about 1/4 mile of shad that looked like this photo about a week ago. In 18 fow it appeared there was 13 feet of shad.

you can feel when those schools of shad swim through your line the last few weeks!

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One thought to put in the hat is primary forage/food source. That may play in scent. I know it plays a card in fillet color.

-Boogs

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Someone told me that is the case with walleyes from Green Bay,a diet with mostly gizzard shad.Hence the strong oily odor/taste.