Once the salmon come in to spawn, they have reached the end of their life cycle. The colors change from dark grey to bronze, then to black with shades of red or red bellies. This is not a spawning color display, it is what happens to the flesh and skin as the fish dies slowly. For years I have been keeping and experimenting with different recipes for smoking, grilling, and de-hydrating these dying salmon fillets but I have yet to find a palatable finished product. The meat is mushy, tan or brown, and exhibits a strong "old fish" flavor. Imagine if you will leaving your salmon fillets from the fish market in 65 degree water for 2 weeks, then cooking them. Yea... eww.

So, we use the carcass and scrap grinder at the fish cleaning station to grind up the fish into fish meal that is sold for use as fertilizer. The Port Authority makes money on the fish meal and keeps the station running 24/7 for us.

The fish still fight really well, and we harvest the eggs from females we happen to catch, so there really is no "waste" of fish here. In fact 2 of the fish we caught that night were still a bit silver and we filleted those right up. Meat was slightly pink, so we are hopeful that the meat will still be tasty.

I'm going back out tonight and with any luck should do just as good if not better. Tuesday's trip I tied my personal best salmon at 19.5 lbs. This trip I need to pop my 20lb mark, folks out this way have coined the term "tuna" for any salmon over 20... Let the tuna hunt commence!