Properly cleaning bluegill etc.

When gutting out a bluegill, crappie, perch etc. there remains on the inside of the ribcage a thin silver kind of lining that can be scraped out with a sharp knife. You know what I mean? I’m wondering if this part of the fish contains any of the contaminants like pcbs and merc and such. Does everyone scrape this part out or not? It seems like kind of a simple thing, but I’m trying to tell someone it should be done and he looks at me like I’m nuts or somethin :} What do you think? Scrape or not?

I dunno about silverskin (other than I don’t like it on my filets), but…

Mercury (aka methalmecury sp?) is stored in the entire fish.. all muscles, organs, tissues… including the parts that taste best.. and PCB’s hang out in the fatty parts of the fish and the skin.

While I’m no fishologist , I wouldn’t really worry as much about those gills for Mercury and PCB’s I would fish that eat other fish… like eyes and mr. green.

I also am not anykind of fish authority, but I believe the “silvery stuff” is a diaphram that’s used to help inflate the bladder.

I would guess that it wouldn’t contain anymore mercury/toxins than the other “flesh” parts of a fish. Your fatty tissues/belly meat is going to hold the most toxins and as the above post mentioned mercury is pretty much evenly distributed throughout (not counting organs).

As JickyJack pointed out, the further up the food chain you go, the more toxins you will encounter. Also the older/larger the fish the more you’ll find.
To answer your question, the “silvery stuff” isn’t going to hurt you anymore than the fish…(although I feel better knowing it’s been cleaned out too!)

I think you are talking about the peritoneum. This is the lining of the gut cavity (or peritoneum). I’m not sure if it would be higher in oils than other parts of the body or not, and that would probably vary between fish species. It is primarily connective tissue. Parts of the body that are highest in fat pick up the most PCBs and as has been mentioned above, mercury gets spread pretty much through the whole body. In general, the more fish (and larger) a fish eats, the higher in mercury it will be. Largemouth bass and striped bass and to a slightly lesser extent walleye have a special affinity for mercury. Smallies are a bit better, probably because they eat less fish as a proportion of the diet.

Thanks Carptracker!

My word for the week is “peritoneum”. It’s going to be fun to see how I can use this at work!