edible?

Well, this could really be answered two ways. Are the fish in the Skokie Lagoons edible? Bottom line is yes. Wouldn't recommend dining on them regularly, and there are certainly cleaner waters, but its not the dump some believe it to be.

That being said, there are better area waters from which to selective harvest fish for consumption. The Cook County Forest Preserve waters are really best left to catch and release fishing.

Ditto to what Jason said. The water in that place gets so much runoff that I wouldn't ever consider eating anything caught there. In my opinion the fish caught from Lake Michigan would be much better for consumption.

I wouldn't eat anything outta there.

Toothdoc has a point. Its the runoff that makes it bad. That place is meant for managing flood water from nearby municipalities. Imagine the amount of petroleum products, solvents, detergents, herbicides, fertilizers, not to mention the pathogens that exist in there. There's only one way to find out. Let us know if you grow any extra body parts.

Speaking of LM salmonids toothdoc, I heard one salmon a month is the "good health" limit. Is that true? I'm guessing they're going by average size, maybe ~7-9 lbs?

I believe the lagoons are actually part of the Chicago river, I wouldnt eat anything out of there.

Culprit said:

I believe the lagoons are actually part of the Chicago river, I wouldnt eat anything out of there.

Click to expand...

this is true. Also the forest preserve in northfield, also has a small branch of the chi river... zig zags all over the place out to deerfield.

Yall are crazzy! I wouldn't eat anything from IL!!! :lol: or atleast out of the forest preserves and such around here...

Some panfish from some northern IL lakes are good around the winter time though :wink:

I second the or 3rd the post on the Chicago River, I wouldn't eat anything outta there if the C-River runs into it.

I think the LM salmonoids have a high mercury content which is why there are limitations. I don't think there is much risk though unless you are eating them every day. Personally I would not eat anything from the goons for the above mentioned reasons. The best local place I have found for fish consumption is Shabbona. The crappie in there are pretty tasty and they are so overun that taking an occasional limit is actually beneficial to the overall fishery IMO.

I actually ate a 24 and 18 in walleye out of there over the weekend and they were great if you ask me, but now that i know its part of the chicago river system, i might not ever do that again.

so LM is about the only body of water in the northwest IL areas worth eating from?

If the chicago river connection is true, thats nasty IMHO!