Walleye Tapeworm

[Scott M]

At a family gathering we were discussing the story of a group of fishermen who went up into the boundary waters, caught some walleye, and had freshwater raw sushi shore lunch out of their catch. To make a long story short, 6 months later one of the party had a routine medical exam, found out he had like 6 huge tapeworms. He contacts his buddies and they all have tapeworms too. I commented that I found this story hard to believe, but my relative claims it was in the Star Tribune or the New York Times or something a year or two ago. Anyone hear of this or have a comment? I always thought parasites were pretty host-specific. Considering what a huge difference in environments and diets humans and fish have, I just couldn't believe it but I didn't want to overdebate the issue and look like an a-hole. I will post on the BWCA board too.

[Guido]

Quote:

---

caught some walleye, and had freshwater raw sushi shore lunch out of their catch.

---

Thats nasty. Raw walleye?

[The Grebe]

Go back to about late summer on the open water thread, this issue was discussed pretty good.

[Cooter]

I've seen these tapeworms numerous times. On a reservoir close by if you leave walleyes in a bucket of water overnight and they die, these tapeworms will leave the walleye - they must sense when they die. First thought it was slime, but no doubt its tapeworms. I've actually pulled them out of a walleyes mouth as they were leaving their old host. Nasty.

[Wiskers]

We caught several Pike out of LOW last spring that had huge tape worms dangling out of them.. ewwwwwwwwwwww...

[fishin789]

I found an artical on them tape worms if anyone wants to read up on it.

tape worms in minnesota fish