Aquatic products are delicious and nutritious, and are an important source of food protein for human intake. However, the distinct odor represented by the fishy smell in freshwater aquaculture often occurs, which not only affects the flavor of aquatic products, but also reduces the consumer's willingness to consume them and restricts the stable development of the aquaculture industry. The scientific control and prevention of earthy odor in aquatic products is an important means to ensure the quality of aquatic products, which is important for meeting the needs of the industry and still needs to be studied in depth. This paper reviews the special odor in aquatic products with earthy odor as a typical representative, and discusses the mechanism of odor substances in aquatic products causing odors like the earth odor. It is now generally accepted that water quality conditions in the aquaculture environment indirectly affect the formation of odor substances, and various water quality indicators have a significant impact on the fishy odor of aquatic products. Most removal methods affect meat quality, destroy the protein of aquatic products, and cause changes in flavor and color. By improving the culture environment and reducing 2-Methylisoborneol (MIB) and geosmin (GSM) in aquatic products, the production of earth odor can be reduced at the source, which is one of the main methods to control earth odor in aquatic products, but this method is often costly. Therefore, in order to improve the economic efficiency of aquatic products, to solve the problem of fishy smell in freshwater farmed aquatic products, it is necessary to address the characteristics of various aspects of aquatic products breeding, distribution and processing, and make comprehensive use of various deodorization methods to achieve the deodorization effect.