36#Chrome/White Meat pic

[smoky]

Caught this beauty on the coast with my dog Friday afternoon. Meat was white with shades of orange at the head.

Also caught another 18# Chrome that was very pale but smokable.

Cutting a 36# chrome fish that was white was very dissapointing.

Upside:

1.A great fight and challenge landing the fish by myself.

2.Two chromers is less than 2 hours.

3. 4 quarts of eggs.

4.Put two other boats into Chinook. Two steelheaders came by while I was fighting the 36#er. They had been upriver all day lookin for Steelies. I told the one boat to anchor next to me and put the other boat below me about two hundred feet. They both caught Chinook within 15 minutes. Both gave a big thanks as I headed down river. The one boat came by while I was fighting the second fish and netted it for me. Neither boat was an IFISH member. One group was from WA. The other was in a rental drift boat.

[Bait O' Eggs]

Nice looking fish Smokey [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

How was the Pale Ale?

[ChinookSlayer]

I had a similar experience last year. My neighbor and I both tagged on chrome bright fish, with sea lice! When cleaned on the river bank, the rib cage was nice and bright orange. Excited as all get out, we headed home to finish filleting the fish. After taking a side off, both of our jaws fell open. The meat was just like you described. They smoked up well, so I was not too disappointed.

What cracks me up, is everytime someone gets a pale fish, they start talking about "white salmon". No Johnny, that fish is just old...

That is still one nice looking fish, and well worth bragging over. I wish I was doing some fishing now as well. :depressed:

[husker]

nice fish smoky....woo hoo....

[Bobby Ray]

Jeff,

Very nice fish man

Congrats

Bobby

[ZaQ]

You looked surprised in that photo....

Nice fish!
[img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

[dlgobeavs]

Hi Jeff:

Nice fish! [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

Lets go fishin' sometime!

Dave

[SKP]

I caught a chrome chinook last year in mid-November that cut white. I was very disappointed also. We BBQ'd a couple of pieces for dinner that night, and it was just as good as a fish in September on the coast. The taste was great, only the meat was white. Ivory salmon I think is what they call it.

Try it, it's probably better than you realize.

SKP

[Ty]

NOTE:

Bright on the outside does NOT = good flesh quality. Sounds like your big fish just had washed out meat, not a white chinook. White chinook have a recessive gene that does not allow them to retain the pigments from creastaceans they eat as in other chinook and salmon, and there meat is unaffected flavor and quality wise, although many would argue that the white chinook is oilier and has a better flavor. Most white chinook ariginate in Canada and are caught in salt water.

However, I caution people catching mature spawing fish that are silver on the outside and white or washed out orange as white chinook, they comparison of meat color only works on fish that are not mature and putting nutrients into gonad production.

It is really common with the late fall and winter chinook to be chrome bright and have very well devoloped eggs if not loose eggs. I have found many December and January chinook hens completely spawned out chrome bright with a white tail from digging redds.

Fresh fish is good no matter the color of fish, it just doesn't preserve as well. I would never smoke a fish that I wouldn't freeze.

A good way to tell flesh quality is; touch soft=bad firm=good, under lower opercule (gill plate) there is a small strip of clear skin that will help indicate flesh quality and color, and lastly hens usually have lower meat quality and if are well devoloped there ribs will almost show from the well developed eggs they are carring.