Bigger fish to fry

[theanimal]

That's pretty neat. How long did it take you until you started predicting their runs? I'm guessing you have been fishing for quite some time.

[George the original one]

Trout fishing was nailed long ago, probably in the late '80s. Stopped fishing around 1996-97 as other activities took precedence and regulations severely restricted what was legal to catch. Renewed the interest in 2008 as regulations eased.

I never attempted to catch salmon/steelhead until start of 2010. First steelhead landed was 2012 after buying the retirement property. Caught & released one coho in fall 2012. 2013 was a much better year catching, but I was still fishing the wrong river for keepers.

Switched to this neighboring river for the coho season. Already knew that rain will bring them upriver and that they're often trickling upriver even when there hasn't been rain. However, after watching the clock a few times, it became possible to predict for that river that they begin leaving the bay at dawn, thus the earliest fish arrive at "my" spot is about 3 hours later.

[George the original one]

Finally caught a chinook. Accidentally on purpose. Just a little jack salmon (dinner for 2-4, depending on appetites), but at least it was one I angled for.

[George the original one]

There's one stream close to home that has a spring/summer chinook run. These chinook are primarily hatchery fish that were supposed to go up the Columbia River and on up to the Willamette hatcheries, however a few take a wrong turn and wind up in this little stream. Generally they mosey upstream to a deep hole and stay there until the fall rains and then they spawn. Others sit out in tidewater before venturing upstream with the first fall rains.

I've been unsuccessfully chasing these spring chinook in this particular stream for 5 years now (good exercise) and finally caught my first spring chinook today!

The problem is these are spring chinook that have been sitting in fresh water all summer, so they are "dark" and generally considered not worth keeping. And I have to agree, it's not a good idea to keep them when they're dark, but... well I know that they do make decent salmon patties. Not the best salmon patties, like you'd get with good bright salmon, but something that's the quality of canned salmon, which I wouldn't bother eating except as salmon patties.

[fiby41]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9HI-D ... HRHa2hkSGM

(Hmm, couldn't get google image to embed, so you're stuck with the link for now)

On PC, you could right click the image to get the jpg url to embed. I tried to long press the image on phone. It was not effective.

Do you weigh your catch?

I ate smoked salmon for the first time yesterday, so you resurrected this thread timely for me.

[George the original one]

Do you weigh your catch?

I try to for the salmon & steelhead. Doesn't always happen. Initially I wanted to know how much of the fish doesn't make it to a plate (about half) and now it's just for bragging rights & trying to spot trends (there aren't any, LOL). So this salmon was about 13 lbs and I ended up with about 6.5 lbs of meat... that's like 7-8 large cans worth, since we made salmon patties instead of baking filets or steaks.

It is amazing how a few simple ingredients & spices turn a poor quality fish into a luxury meal. We cooked the first batch of salmon patties using about a third of the fish and they're a treat! That was a dozen patties and I've eaten three before calling it quits for tonight.