BELFAST CITY COUNCIL is warning locals not to eat fish they found on the street after a massive fish spill in the city last weekend. They really aren’t codding. (Sorry.)

Thousands of mackerel were dumped accidentally on the Ravenhill Road on Saturday night, and residents immediately began taking advantage of the free food.

However, there is a ‘catch’ (sorry again).

Belfast City Council is now advising its citizens: Don’t eat fish found lying on the roadside. They’re too fishy.

The mackerel reportedly fell from a lorry with a faulty back door late on Saturday night – local residents then began hauling in the fish in plastic bags before passing cars could turn them to pulp.

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Local man Tommy Bardsley says he bagged 25 mackerel and deemed them off-the-boat fresh, declaring: “I know fish.”

But the council says that Bardsley and other opportunists don’t know microbiology, because they don’t know where the fish came from, and they could be contaminated by automotive pollutants.

You know what they say, always look a gift fish in the mouth.