Wth is in my ling cod meat???

[NRA4LIFE]

I've seen this a few times in Rockfish we caught in the summertime out of Westport.  No problems in the fish we got in May between halibut days out of Neah Bay or La Push.  And I'm with many of you, that is disgusting.  We've probably put 1000 or more salmon in our boats out of the sound and I'm guessing nearly every single one of them had lice.  Especially humpies.  Those don't seem to bother me.

[Stein]

I've seen a lot of parasites in fish flesh, but never anything like that.  When we cut the ling for portions we cut it really high off the belly, to avoid the wormy meat. Tough on yields, but ling bellies are particularly bad for some reason.

95% of salmon have parasites.  If it’s in the ocean the only question is whether they are big enough to see or the small ones.

If you count sea lice, I'd say right about 100% of salmon have parasites.  But if you're talking parasites in the flesh, I haven't seen anything close to 95% mentioned anywhere. Genuinely interested - is there a source of info you can point me to?  Or is this something you've seen in the fish you've encountered?

Proper freezing or cooking kills em all, no matter the frequency. Best to assume they all have a parasite of some sort and play it safe. For cooking it, I feel like you have to nearly ruin the fish to cook it enough to kill all potential parasites. I believe 145F is the standard.  A decent temp if you hit it just right, but overdo it just by a little and the fish can get dry.

For freezing,  the FDA consensus is to hold it at -31F for 15 hours. Not possible in home freezers, so you should store your home-packed fish at -4F for 7 days (that's 7 days after the core temp has gotten down to -4F, not from the time you put it in the freezer). After that, it's sashimi safe. Thaw it out and eat it raw, do a ceviche, poke, whatever you want.  All good.

Pro tip- the faster you can get it frozen, the better the quality.  Spread it out in your freezer, vac pack in single filet thicknesses, and make sure there is air flow around the fish if at all possible to help it freeze faster.

Just some things I've learned over the years.

Nice fish trophyhunt, enjoy!   

Meateater episode, they had some big timey parasite guy on.  Really interesting info, I didn’t know all sushi salmon was froze.  It’s one of the fish never safe to eat raw without freezing.

That said, I’m still standing but freeze mine now.  Apparently it’s not super dangerous, more of a thing you just want to avoid.  If I remember right, they can’t live long term in people but can be pretty unpleasant.

I guess each fish has parasites unique to that species.  Not many can live in people so you either freeze it all or really know what you are doing.


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[Sandberm]

Only freshwater fish I've noticed parasites in the meat were fall caught trout out of Bumping lake. If i found em', i flicked them out and cooked normally. I figured the cooking process killed what i didn't get out.

I suppose if I found a whole gut full I would pause and think about it. Some sort of mini alien head popping out would have me doing a ritual burning.

[Jake Dogfish]

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