Eating post spawn salmon

[Bigjay73]

Watched a youtube video by CPW about one of the salmon hatcheries. They actually give away the salmon after they collect the necessaries, looked like a lot of people showed up for the free salmon. Has anyone ever tried eating post spawn salmon? Not gonna lie, it looks nasty.

 

[Irrelevant]

Watched a youtube video by CPW about one of the salmon hatcheries. They actually give away the salmon after they collect the necessaries, looked like a lot of people showed up for the free salmon. Has anyone ever tried eating post spawn salmon? Not gonna lie, it looks nasty.

It's not a fraction as good as a chromer, but it's still good/decent, at least the two times I've had them.

 

[Bigjay73]

Good to know. Maybe I'll try and grab some in the future

 

[44hunter45]

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

I've had a few, sometimes they can get kind of mushy. They're alright smoked. Can you post a link to the vid?

 

[Bigjay73]

I've had a few, sometimes they can get kind of mushy. They're alright smoked. Can you post a link to the vid?

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

That's pretty cool, thanks.

 

[Irrelevant]

never had a sockeye that far along.

 

[Trial153]

Kings no way, silvers and sockeye if they are in good shape your okay

 

[Maverick1]

 

[gouch]

For many years I had a connection to a guy that worked in a hatchery. He would give me 50 lbs. of frozen fillets every year. Some batches were better than others but generally speaking, if you smoke them, they aint half bad.

 

[NY_BLUES]

I've only ever eaten a Coho post spawn, won't do that again. The filets tasted like trash, even smoked they were not good.
Not sure if it's still the same, but when I was in college at SUNY Morrisville, the Salmon River hatchery in NYS used to put the post spawn salmon in a dumpster and local farmers would end up using them as fertilizer on their fields. Those were Cohos I believe as well.

 

[SD_Prairie_Goat]

I have but only for the smoker. Still can turn out a little mushy so I recommend salmon jerky instead of just smoked salmon

 

[pawhitetail]

The only way I really prefer to eat any fall run salmon is canned then turned into salmon cakes.
Stuff jars to bottom ring with 1" cubed meat as tight as possible. Add 1tsp salt to each quart jar. Apply lids and process as you would deer meat. It makes its own juice when cooked so no need to add water.
For the salmon cakes you take 1 quart jar and dump salmon along with broth into a bowl. Add 2 sleeves of saltine crackers along with 4 eggs and salt and pepper to taste. Fry in oil over medium heat in a cast iron skillet. Serve along with some homemade Mac and cheese and you have a pretty good quick meal. We love it this way but not much any other way. A quart jar makes about 12-14 nice sized cakes. I've actually started canning it in pints.

 

[Kaitum]

When I worked for SD GF&P, we'd spawn Chinook at the Whitlocks Bay facility each fall. There was a contractor who collected the spawned out fish from us, processed them, and sold them somewhere. I was always curious to see the label to know how that guy was marketing what he was selling.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Good God no! Guess I'm spoiled but I'll only kill fish that still have sea lice on them. My dogs won't eat spawned fish and grizz generally will pass on post spawn fish. They'll eat the brain and leave the rest. The dogs do like to drag them out of the river and roll on them however.
We had a contest with every group, who could catch fillet and have a fresh fish on the bbq the fastest. Six minutes was the record, about a 7pound Sockeye. Our place was right at tidewater so the fish were ocean bright.

 

[gonhunting247]

Pretty mushy post spawn for sure!

 

[Bambistew]

Laughs in Alaskan...

 

[Irrelevant]

I mean people eat rainbow trout so...

 

[SilentBirdHunter]

Kings no way, silvers and sockeye if they are in good shape your okay

I smoked kings that swam 2000 miles upstream near Fairbanks and the were fine. Hickory and smoke for 24 hours then pressure canned. Pinks and chums would be worse than kings.