What is going on with lakes in Tx? When i read through the TP&W Outdoor Annual, i see all these bans or "warnings" for Mercury and PCBs and whatnot. There are lakes you can't even eat the fish out of. I fish for fun...but i EAT what i catch... It makes me feel like that old commercial with Iron Eyes Cody. Is this one of the reasons so many people are only about catch and release theze days?

All the weed and feed everyone puts on there yard has to go somewhere.

Blame it on Global Warming. Seems like a valid argument.....

Mercury occurs naturally in a lot of East Texas land and it concentrates in the lakes and water. PCB's came from contaminated oil used on roads. Both also come from coal fired power plants.

When you read deeper into it, you will see that you would have to eat large portions of fish three times a day for it to have any real affect on you. I wouldn't worry about it.

I am not daft enough to think this is just Texas, i know its everywhere, but this is where i live dagnabit..LoL I wanna blame Monsanto...and Isis...and Donald Trump. I cant ever remember as a kid, the need to worry about if the fish Dad and caught was safe. Huh..maybe i should have been.. I dunno, i think i will just steer clear of the lakes on the "list", its not like we have a shortage in Texas!

It's all Bush's fault.

The mercury levels in most freshwater fish were actually higher 30 years ago than they are now. Thanks to the EPA the water is much safer than it was in the 70s and 80s.

There are consumption warnings for almost all fish now days. It really only matters if you eat a LOT of fish you catch. And even then there's no guarantee the mercury will have any effect on you. It's just a health and safety precaution to help avoid lawsuits in the future. Don't worry about it.

"EAT MO CHIKIN"

I remember some local lakes back in the 70's putting out a warning..
Come to find out they admitted the average Joe would have to eat a semi truck load of fish before it (might) have any effect.. If your worried about it-- then turn em loose.

When we were kids (I'm an old guy) the technology to detect such things in such extremely low concentrations did not exist. A lot of what is in the water got there naturally, some did not.

Bottom line is that just because you can detect something (say radiation from Fukushima) does not mean that it is bad for you.

Mercury, a lot of it, comes from the timber industry's past when they used methyl mercury as a log preservative.

PCB's mostly come from old transformers and dioxin from burning trash and from chemical plants.

You probly got worse things to worry about in your drinking water, arsenic, radon, and a ton of other things.

the most likely to be effected negatively at smaller amounts are pregnant women and small children. all mercury has negative impacts, but unless you eat fish daily, you likely won't have problems. i don't catch enough fish to matter. lucky me.

Yeah most of the contaminants are trace..and true many of the warnings say no more that 2 eight oz servings in a month...heck i could eat that in a sitting! At least i KNOW its there...I have been warned! Hahaaa... Now, off to the lake to catch a boat full o mercury!!

Truth is almost all white fish has mercury contamination. But most at levels that are considered safe.