The Alabama Department of Public Health has issued its 2011 fish consumption advisories so fishermen may know when it is safe to eat the fish that they catch.
I wish I could explain to you with certainty exactly where those advisories are in effect and what they mean. That's hard to do when state officials don't really seem to know themselves.
Let me give you an example. Striped bass sampled from one location on Lay Lake tested for high levels of PCBs. The state health department recommends that children and women of childbearing age should eat no striped bass from the lake. All other people should restrict their intake of striped bass to one meal per month.
That warning is in effect for all of Lay Lake. Although striped bass from only one small section of the lake were tested, striped bass is a species that moves around a lot, according to state health officials.
That being said, there has for years been a non-consumption advisory for striped bass and all other species on Choccolocco Creek, Lake Logan Martin's largest tributary. PCBs are the culprit there too.
That advisory extends on into a portion of Lake Logan Martin as it should. Water from Choccolocco Creek flows into Lake Logan Martin and then flows downstream to Logan Martin Dam.
Oddly, the no-consumption advisory is only for downstream of the confluence of Choccolocco Creek and Lake Logan Martin. Any good stripe fisherman will tell you that striped bass seek the cool thermal refuges of Choccolocco Creek in the summer and then go north toward Neely Henry Dam in the fall.
There is not a consumption advisory for north of Choccolocco Creek even though that's where the striped bass from Choccolocco Creek head in the fall.
Lay Lake has its oddities on consumption advisories, too.
There is a no-consumption advisory for largemouth bass for children and women of childbearing age only on a certain area of the lake (approximately 1.5 miles downstream of the US 280 bridge.)
State health department officials say largemouth bass don't move around a lot, and advisories are adjusted to reflect that. Their textbooks may say bass don't move great distances but that isn't true.
There are a lot of bass tournaments on Lay Lake. Bass from the area of concern are frequently caught and released in areas of the lake where there are no warnings. Thus, you might think a bass is safe to eat but in reality it could have spent its whole life in the area where PCBs exceed safe levels.
John Guarisco, a toxicologist for the state health department, acknowledges it can be confusing.
"I can tell you why you shouldn't eat the fish and the area where the fish that were tested came from, but I can't tell you where fish go," Guarisco said. "I've probably confused you. In fact, I've probably confused myself.
"These advisories are just advisories. We're saying this is where fish were tested and this is what they showed. You don't have to follow recommendations."
A lot of fishermen, especially families during the summer, call me wanting to know if fish they have caught from certain lakes are safe to eat. There are so many variables, it's a tough question to answer.
Bream are generally safe to eat from most places. Catfish, can be a tougher call. Bass are usually safe to eat, stripe can be more risky.
My best advice is to visit www.adph.org and check out the fish consumption advisories from across the state. Hope that the lake where you fish will have no advisories. If there are advisories, study them carefully and do what you think best for you and your family.
Mike Bolton's outdoors column appears on Sundays in The Birmingham News. Write him at email@example.com.