ABSTRACT:

Fish is a highly perishable commodity. Many processing and preservation methods have being employed to prolong its shelf life. Smoking is one of such method used in preserving fresh fish. After smoking, the microbial loads were categorized into Total Viable Count (TVC), Total Coliform Count (TCC) and Total Fungi Count (TFC), values obtained for Improved Traditonal Smoking Klin indicated that TVC had the 2 8 highest occurrence of bacteria load ranging from 0.14X10- 0.46X10 , for Clarias spp,Bagrus bayad, Lates 7 niloticus and Heterotis niloticus, only Clarias spp had TCC value of 0.25X10 and TFC value of 0.48X10 S. nigrita, M.rume and Tilapia spp had no values were recorded . These values were significantly different (P< 8 8 0.05). TVC. The Values from Zumba studied indicated that TVC ranged between 1.81.×10- 4.12×10 , TCC 8 4 7 3 3 0.53X10-1.35X10 and TCF was between 0.14×10 0.82×10 for all the seven fish species studied,Gwada site 8 8 4 ranged between 0.73×10- 2.63×10 for TVC, only S.nigrita had TCC value of 0.51×10 and TFC value of 5 8 8 0.11×10 , Kuta site had TVC values that ranged from 1.20×10-3.25×10 , only B. bayad and Clarias spp had 4 4 TCC values of 0.40×10 and 0.23×10 respectively,(P>0.05).The Critical Control Limit (CCL), which according to International Commission on Microbiology Specification for foods (ICMSF) (1997) 3 4 recommended bacteria limit values for dried fish to be 3.0×10 and3.0x10 , while fungi limit should not 2 exceed 2.0×10 . Results obtained for smoke fish in this research fell above this recommendation except for ITSK that had the least microbial load forClarias specie, Additional bacteria isolates like Bacilius megaterium, Bacilius lichinforms, MicroccusRoseus and Microcusluteus were found present on fishes from Kuta and Zumba, suggesting poor handling, poor smoking technique and re-contamination after smoking. It is therefore recommended that, good processing practices like washing the fish thoroughly with clean water, gutting the fishes, bringing the fish before smoking ensure that microbial loads on fish are greatly reduced in other to prevent microorganisms attack and also prolong the shelf life of the fish.