How Bright should it be?

[Pete]

Migratory, anadramous fish change color as they move from the salt towards their fresh water spawning areas (gravel or hatchery). What rules of thumb do you use for various fish to decide if it's a keeper or if it's worth fishing for?

At one end of the spectrum are ocean fish with their brilliant silver and sharply contrasting dark backs. At the other end are near-death fish with flesh hanging off them. Somewhere in between most fishers make a distinction between good and bad. I think it also varies by species. I've caught chinook that looked "nearly" bright, but once out of the water started darkening and stinking. For me, a chinook needs to be pretty near it's ocean coloration to be interesting. Yet, I see a lot of people carrying very dark fish off the river.

Steelhead, on the other hand, which have the ability to return to the ocean after spawning, seem to retain their fight and vigor even after assuming resident rainbow colors, but after spawning are thin and often lethargic.

I suppose there's a geographical element, too. Chum in Oregon are just not the same fish as they are further north.

At what point does it change from being a question of personal choice and become an ethical question? When the fish are on their redds? Obviously, the question is different for hatchery fish than for natives.

[Thumper]

I fill the freezer fishing in Alaska, so any fish I keep here have to be minty.

[Stz ll]

Interesting question. Yesterday we were fishing in Wilson tidewater My partner hooked a big buck which was pretty dark with red on it. It was dark enough that we decided it should be released to go make more fish. Unfortunatley the fish was hooked a way that it was bleeding from the gills when we landed it. Tracey decided at that point that she should kill it and tag it since it was almost dead already. What a suprise we had when we cleaned that fish. The meat on that dark buck was very firm with meat as red a fire engine. Don't assume that bucks with some color are already bad. On the other hand in this same spot I a have caught crome bright hens with sea lice all over them who had meat about as white as a piece of paper. Color does not always dictate flesh quality.
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[Salmonator]

In general the meat in the hens will start to turn way sooner than the bucks. I have kept many turning tidewater bucks that had great meat. A dark hen will almost always have light pink or pale meat.
From what i've seen and read about the genetically white salmon, the meat is nearly snow white. Much whiter than the worst red-turned-white meat you could catch around here.

[DC]

Now I don't know whether I did the right thing or not. I released a 45.5 inch buck two days ago on the Yaquina because I thought it was too dark for good eating. It was gray on the belly and fairly dark on the sides with some red coloration. It was in good condition so I released it after much soul searching as it was the largest chinook I have caught. It was broad as well as long. Does anyone have an estimate of what it might have weighed? I did not take a girth measurement as I was more concerned with getting it back into the river.

[Vinny]

Stz II,
I too found pink meat inside a couple of bucks this week. The two which I caught also had red and turned darker after the "bonk 'n' bleed."

Regarding your white meat comment. About a week ago there was a thread regarding the (good) quality of white meat and the possible absence of some gene related to meat color. Someone else would know better than I.

[hustlerrjim]

all you have to do is look a the roof of their mouth right behind the nose the meat will be about the same color and quality

[fishbait]

I will validate Jim's post as to looking inside their mouth for an indication. Although you can still get fooled sometimes.
My take on this is that it is always a matter of personal choice. I happen to catch lots of salmon and turn back some perfectly good fish for lots of differant reasons. Someone else that only fishes twice a year may catch a dusky/semi dark fish and not only keep it, but show it off and use up an entire roll of film on it. Personal choice...

[Tanner]

In my post titled "The Kid Scores Again" There is a photograph of my kid holding up a fairly dark buck. This fish's meat cut bright orange. Generally with fall chinook, no matter how bright, I will only use the tail roast for other things besides smoking. The rest of the fish goes into the smoker. After eating nice bright silver salmon it is really hard to stomach a greasy old fall chinook.

[Trick]

I agree with fishbait....it's a matter of personal choice alot of times and wether or not you even want to mess with it. I released two mint fish this year because of differant reasons. One because I was packing my kids across the creek, back and forth all morning and I knew packing fish would probally have killed me. The other one because I didn't have a cooler in my car for the drive home and then I ended up keeping two jacks anyways...gave them to some freinds.

Last year I released one because it had a deformed snout even though it still had lice...to darn ugly for me. I released around 60-70 silvers/chinooks this year because they weren't mint. I kept 8 silvers and three of those came from 10. If my family was more into Salmon eating I probally wouldn't be so picky.


Alot of guys I see and have fished with use the term "it'll smoke". I have one saying for that...."Junk in, junk out". I won't eat smoked salmon unless I know the person smoking it. Seen to many scab-backs being thrown in the back of trucks.