When most New Yorkers have a hankering for fresh fish, they pop into a local market or order it off a menu. Some prefer a different approach: They head to the city’s waterfront, throw in a line, and wait for the fish to bite. It’s a habit that has some lawmakers worried.

William Fink, 81, a longtime fisherman who says he looks at the fish on the end of his line and (provided they’re the legal size) thinks, “That’s my dinner,” said he doesn’t put too much credence in the many warnings against eating fish caught off the city’s coast.

“There are guys in New York, fishermen, who have been eating fish from beaches and rivers all their lives and they’re okay,” Mr. Fink, who founded the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy’s Marine Education program and has taught thousands of schoolchildren to fish over the last 17 years, said. “I’d be much more wary of some of the other food products, you know, than fish caught off New York waters.”

Mr. Fink said he keeps sea bass that are at least a foot long and black fish that are 14 inches or longer. Black fish, which has dense meat, is well suited for stews and chowders, he said. Other than a health advisory against eating American eel caught in the city’s waters and a warning that striped bass caught locally should be eaten only once a week, the rest of the fish are edible, he said.

The City Council is holding a hearing today on fishing in New York Harbor to find out how the city and state are advising people who fish in the city about what they should and shouldn’t eat, the counsel to the Waterfronts Committee, Jeffrey Baker, said.

“There is a lot more fish in the bay, there’s a lot more people fishing, and, in some respects, the harbor is cleaner. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the fish are any healthier to eat,” he said.

The second to last page of a 34-page guide to saltwater fishing in New York City put out by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation says that people should eat fish caught from New York Harbor only once a month and that children under 15 and women of “childbearing age” should eat no fish at all from the area. A more detailed report by the state’s health department gives specific advice about which fish can be consumed and how often.

Mr. Fink said the Hudson River supports more than 200 different kinds of fish. He and his students have caught more than 40 fish species in the water off of Battery Park City, some of them exotic, he said.

The gulf stream passes close to New York this time of year, bringing with it fish that normally reside in Florida or the Carolinas, he said. His students are taught to catch and release their fish.

The state lists nine saltwater fish on its identification chart for city anglers: striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, blackfish, porgy, black sea bass, winter flounder, fluke, striped sea robin, American eel, little skate, and spiny dogfish.

The water around the city attracts new fishermen and -women every day. Last Sunday, Cheng Zheng, 40, traveled from his home in Flushing to Battery Park with his 11-year-old son, Wenzhu Zheng, to fish for the first time in New York.

They came with a friend of Mr. Zheng’s, who had been fishing on the coast of Lower Manhattan a handful of times. The men left their fishing poles leaning against the rail above the water, fixing small plastic clips with silver bells to the top so they would be alerted to a fish bite.

Another man later joined them, pulling a live crab the size of a small fist out of a plastic bag and snipping its legs off with a pair of thick scissors. He then cut the body in two and slipped the pieces onto two hooks.

Mr. Zheng, who moved to America from southern China nine years ago, said he’d take fish home for dinner so long as it wasn’t bluefish, because he said he doesn’t like the way they taste. His friend has eaten at least one of the fish he’s caught, he said.

Mr. Zheng said he had heard warnings about the cleanliness of the water and admitted that he was confused by one thing: Are the fish sold at grocery stores caught locally, he asked, pointing to the water, or from somewhere else?

“I still am a little scared,” he said, referring to eating fish caught from the waters off Manhattan, “but I never tried” them.

A general manager of a fly fishing store, Urban Angler Ltd., in Manhattan, Jeremy Kehrein, said most fly fishermen release the fish they catch back into the wild, sometimes after snapping a quick photo. Mr. Kehrein, who moved to New York from Montana in January, said he doesn’t even eat fish.

“We, as fly fishermen, like the fact that we can catch a fish, keep it alive, put it back,” he said. “Someone else can catch it and take a picture of it.”

He said there are now more fish and bigger ones in New York Harbor, a turnaround he attributes to a drop in commercial fishing and new requirements that say only large fish can be kept.

Some fishermen don’t need warnings to convince them. They simply throw their fish back because they can’t imagine eating something caught in New York Harbor.

Frank Minichino, a city employee who lives in Queens and fishes occasionally in Battery Park, said that in May he threw back a 32-inch striped bass. He doesn’t eat anything he catches.

“I think it’s a little dirty,” he said. “I’d rather go to the store and get the fish.”