white meated chromers

[fishbait]

Whats up with this. The fish that my friend caught last week in Wilson tidewater had mostly white meat. Just a little red at the tip of the fillet behing the gill flaps and some color in the front half of the belly meat, otherwise looked like a spawner. Now this fish was almost chrome, no duskyness on the belly at all, Numerous long tail sealice, it was a girl and the eggs were tight. I was very suprised at the condition of the meat. Anyone else experiencing this with any of their fish?

[Hairball]

We have some runs of white Kings in WA and theirs lots of white kings in Canada. Was it a King? It might of took a wrong turn some where.

[TH Rods]

We catch a lot of pale meet hatchery hens on the Elk river.. chrome bright, sea lice, plae meet... males don't seem to be this way???

TH
www.thcustomrods.com (http://www.thcustomrods.com)

[onstep]

I was in Alaska on business earlier this year and had the opprotunity to try white meated salmon. If you can get over the color the quality is the same as a deep red fish. In fact my host had purposely paid an unbelievable amount of money for it. Apparently, it is considered the best and finest of salmon. I just couldn't get over the color...

[Deleted User]

I have caught and eaten a lot of the ocean fresh "white meat Kings" of Northern B.C. and they are very good (I like the red meat ones better though). Some call them 'the other white meat' up there. But those fish are either pigment specific subspecies &/or fish that travel to ocean feed areas where baitfish are the prevalent diet. It's the shrimp/crustacian diets that turn the salmon meat pigment pink/orange/red. It's a different story in Tillamook waters where all the chinook salmon are of the colored meat variety. I have caught only a few mint bright 'nooks down there with pale white meat. I theorize that since there is such an abudance of baitfish off shore this year that the % of crustacians in there diet is less the last couple years, and this particular fish may have stayed out in the saltwater/bay waiting a little longer for a rain freshet than others might and her metabolism just ate up the fat/pigment which just goes quicker in some fish? I doubt that a pale meat fish down here will be prime table fair, but can be smoked OK. - RT

[Trick]

I've caught chinook in the past, south of the south Columbia Jetty that had red blotchy flesh (areas of pink and white mixed together)? I'm sure they were Tule's but they were still mint bright. Caught a steelhead onetime on the Wallowa after releasing several dark fish. It was a nice looking mint fish and from what experience told me, this fish would have nice pink meat. I tagged it and began to clean out the little 6lb hen and it had great looking solid egg skeins. But what I seen next made me ill. This fish had the the most white flesh I'd ever seen on any salmon or steelehead. It was as white as notebook paper? I had a couple guys near me that were as happy as clams to take the fish. That was the last Steelhead that I ever kept on the eastside. Don't know if all steelhead that swim that far turnout that way, but I'm not keeping anymore to find out.

[fishhead5]

We get about 3-5 white meat brite kings a year. Try eating one, the best youll ever taste.

Fishhead5

[Fishin Magician]

About a month ago got a big CHROMER hen on the lower Wilson . She had sea lice hanging all over her and I filleted her to find she was as pale a halibut. I have gotten tuleys on the nehalem but never on the Wilson. I couldnt get over the color so I smoked her .I dont know why but I have heard that diet has something to do with it.FM

[Stinkfoot]

I think a lot of those white meat salmon and steelhead are lacking an enzyme that processes the red stuff in krill. So the red stuff gets pooped out instead of incorporated into the flesh. There are some stocks that don't have the enzyme at all, and in other stocks it occasionally happens due to random mutation.
At least that's what someone told me.