Worms?

[welladjusted]

Stayed insore on Friday and hit up Turkey Point and Dog Island reef for trout. Did ok, but when we cleaned the fish they all had white worm looking things in the flesh. No trout for dinner that day. Went offshore on Sunday and got into Red Grouper with the same problem. When we got them home and filleted them, the same white worms were there.
I've never seen these in fish before...maybe I have just lucked out all this time. Does anyone know anything about them? I thought it was strange that they were in inshore and offshore fish. What are they?

[What a mess]

Protien fry em up and eat them many fish have worms I really think it would be a bad idea to tell the ladies.

[big bend gyrene]

EXTREMELY common. Very surprised you haven't seen them before if you've cleaned many seatrout.

And not dangerous at all -- The common "spaghetti worms" in the muscle tissue of seatrout are the pleurocercoid stage of a parasitic worm that affects a number of fish. The first life stages of the worm are spent in copepods (tiny crustaceans), then are transmitted to the trout when the copeods are eaten by small trout. The adult stage of this cestode occurs most often in sharks, NOT humans. Cooking fish kills the worms and numerous websites I've visited say you're safe even if you were to eat the seatrout raw, due to the adult stage being fish specific, though I can't say I've ever consumed any uncooked parasitic worms on purpose .

Not positive the parasitic worms you found in the grouper are the same as the seatrout, though I suspect so... maybe someone else can confirm.

[wevans]

Protien fry em up and eat them many fish have worms I really think it would be a bad idea to tell the ladies.

If you've eaten fish or shrimp, you have already eaten them

[big bend gyrene]

Here's a Florida Wildlife Commission article on marine parasitic worms...

http://research.myfwc.com/engine/downlo ... pe=product

The article makes a good point that not only does cooking kill the worms, but so does freezing fish

[rbraswell]

They are also very common in freshwater species. In Lake Seminole, they are in just about anything you catch. No worries though, I've been eating fish from there since I was a kid and I'm only a little "off the rocker"

[Joe]

I do remove them with my filet knife during the cleaning process. Small incision grab the head and pull as much of the worm out without destroying the filet. Hold the skinless filet up to the light to check your work. I am not a huge worm fan either.

[Reel Cowboy]

They won't "hurt" you and trying to remove them has never worked out for me. Fried or grilled or blackened and they ain't bad.

[What a mess]

yeah cause it takes a lot of them by themselves.