Are fish with worms ok to eat?

As long as you cook the fish well enough to kill the worms and can get past the Yuk factor they are safe to eat.

if you dont kill the worms when cooked they eat your brain do tou want to take that chance go to giant eagle or go fishing 4 clean fish

Very disturbing post.  Very, very disturbing.

You're fine duUD.
 
Fry'em up.

I wouldn't even have considered it, but once we finally started looking for them we noticed them in just about every fish we caught.  And we caught hundreds of fish.  Everything... crappies, perch, smallmouth, largemouth, walleye and pike all had some in them.  I mainly noticed them in the meat of the perch, but a couple of the walleye had them embedded in the meat.  The way I figure it, if it was something really bad, we would have heard about it from someone along the way because that place was PACKED.  I'm sure other people noticed it.  2 dog, you might be right on the leaches.  The fish that had them in the roof of their mouthes could have definitely been small leaches.  I actually made a comment to that affect to my buddy when I first noticed it. 

I did a little research on the internet and it seems most of the fish we catch have them.  It seems to suggest that they are tapeworms, but normal cooking to 140 degrees will eliminate the problems.  Odds are, we've all eaten them.

Here's the sites I checked out if you wanna look as well.

http://fishcooking.about.com/od/rawfish/a/sushi_fish.htm
http://seafood.ucdavis.edu/Pubs/parasite.htm

Yum Yum

MMmmMMmmMM tapeworm...

Tape worms can lead to a vit. B12 deficiency.  If not caught and treated, it can be fatal, or have irreversible nerve damage.  Not something you want to mess around with.  I recently had blood work done, with low levels of B12.  I'm guessing it was more diet than anything though.  I will no longer eat sushi, and even fried fish is suspect.  I would throw back any fish with visible worms in their mouth, and likely stop fishing the water.  It only takes one egg to get into your system, to infect you.

Yep, EVERY lake I have fished in PA and that I pulled panfish from has had, at one time or another, the yellow parasites in them.  Wilhelm and Pymy always had them later in summer.  Glendale and many of the smaller lakes in Cambria County have them.  You won't be eating much panfish in PA if you won't eat the worms.  If you look hard enough, especially later in summer, you'll find em.  Thoroughly cook em and don't eat sushi from freshwater fish and you'll be fine. 
 
Yellow Grub (From the PFBC website)
 
Yellow grub
Your description suggests you observed encysted metacercariae larval stage of the yellow grub (Clinostomum) parasite. The encysted, yellow to yellowish white worm can be up to 1/4 inch in length. It can be found in virtually all species of North American freshwater fish.
The yellow grub is a digenetic trematode. These types of parasites require several hosts to complete their life cycles. In the case of the yellow grub, the adult parasite is found in the throats of fish eating birds, such as herons. During the feeding process, eggs produced by the adults are washed out of the bird's mouth and into the water. There they hatch, yielding a free swimming larval stage (miracidia) that will die within several hours if it does not find and infect a snail of the genus Helisoma. After further development within the snail, a free swimming cercaria leaves the snail and seeks a fish host. The cercariae burrow through the skin of the fish and encyst, where they develop into the metacercariae. These yellow grubs may live several years in the fish. If the fish is eaten by the bird host the larval metacercariae will develop into adult parasites, completing the life cycle.
Infestations by a few individuals likely cause little harm to fish, however, under certain circumstances, heavy infestations can kill fish. Yellow grubs are described as unsightly by fishermen. A related species occurring in Asia has been found to infect the upper respiratory tract of humans. Thorough cooking kills the North American yellow grub and the parasite does not alter the flavor or the infected fish; however, fish with heavy infestations are typically not eaten by anglers.
Infestation is somewhat greater for fish caught in shallow water where snails and fish eating birds are most prevalent. Fish caught from deep water typically exhibit less infestation. Like many biological phenomenon, prevalence of the grub may be greater in some years and less in others for a variety of reasons including an abundance of intermediate host mollusks and birds.

Stillhead

titleAndStar(3227,0,0,false,"","")
Pro Angler



Yup. This guy eats plenty Pa. panfish, and he definately ain't got no Tapeworm.

ORIGINAL: spoonchucker




Stillhead

titleAndStar(3227,0,0,false,"","")
Pro Angler

You're fine duUD.

Fry'em up.

_____________________________

Yup. This guy eats plenty Pa. panfish, and he definately ain't got no Tapeworm.

 
 
 

I think the ones that I saw in the meat was the "yellow grub" from up above.  The fish that we caught with them were all in shallow, 75 degree water.  The ones with the stuff in the roof of their mouths may have been leaches.  I don't know.  I'm not worried, but some of the rest of the group were.  90% of my diet is pasta, deer, and fish.  I'm sure I've eaten worse.  If a little worm makes it through the boiling oil and kills me, then it was just my time I guess.  Thanks for all of the input guys.  We can put this thread to rest. 

Seriously, if you got a beef steak or pork chop that had worms in it would you ask yourself the same question?
 
If you even ask yourself the question of "do i eat this" in that case there is something wrong with you.
 
Go to some cleaner water or if you are going to continue fishing in that spot fish for the sport and go to wholeys or benkovitz for your eatin' fish.

ORIGINAL: IrishRed

Seriously, if you got a beef steak or pork chop that had worms in it would you ask yourself the same question?

There's worms in pork too. 

Here's the proof! 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1480611842535790434&ei=ONB5SoGOIonzlQeJztC8DA&q=pork+worms&emb=1

Just one more reason for me to NEVER eat a fish. Monsters inside me perch?

I would never intentionally eat parasites.....cooked to 140/180/2000...NO WAY!


P.S. We cleaned alot of perch this year...I did'nt notice any "worms"