27 replies to this topic

[ADM]

Hi, I Do a lot of salmon fishing when they are in season. I don't usually keep the fish or eat the one I catch. But this morning I caught 2 chinook, released the first one and my wife got mad at me. So the next fish I caught I brought home. When I was cleaning the fish and filleting it, I notice the meat is white. I know the one I buy at the store has a reddish meat. Is it because they transferred to freshwater that cause the meat to be white?

[Rainbow]

It's their diet in Lake Ontario

[ADM]

It's their diet in Lake Ontario

Mmm contaminants

[troutddicted]

Did the fish look like this?

http://therockyriver...ationalPark.png

[ADM]

Did the fish look like this?

http://therockyriver.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FirstChinookSalmonReturnUpstreamElwhaDamWashingtonOlympicNationalPark.png

No the fish looks clean from the outside. No scar , or damage to the fins and skin? If ever catch a fish like that I'll be scared to touch it. Not even gonna think about bringing it home to cook lol. Looks like a zombie fish

[CJR]

Did the fish look like this?

http://therockyriver.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FirstChinookSalmonReturnUpstreamElwhaDamWashingtonOlympicNationalPark.png

that's a serious boot.

[Klamp]

Here's your answer: http://www.thinksalm...chinook_salmon/

"White-flesh Chinook salmon are a natural form of Chinook salmon and more common in some stocks than in others..."

[LogJam]

Hi, I Do a lot of salmon fishing when they are in season. I don't usually keep the fish or eat the one I catch. But this morning I caught 2 chinook, released the first one and my wife got mad at me. So the next fish I caught I brought home. When I was cleaning the fish and filleting it, I notice the meat is white. I know the one I buy at the store has a reddish meat. Is it because they transferred to freshwater that cause the meat to be white?

the salmon that are in the rivers are in spawnning mode! they are in there last weeks of survival, once they lay eggs and spawn they will die. the fish have stoped eating few weeks ago, therefore the meat is no longer given nutrients, all food energy is and has gone to spawning. the salmons from lake Ontario are not the best for eating, (check ontario guide to eating fish) anyone planing on haveing kids SHOULD NOT eat them. (high lvels of mercucry) almost all freash water fish will have white meat, unless its a fresh trout from the lakes. then you get pink and orange meat,
if you can eat the fish from up north, georgian bay area, or the salmons that are only 2-3 years old from lake ontario.

i just had some rainbow trout from the geen, yumyum tastey!

[salmotrutta]

Steelhead out of the Great Lakes will also often have white meat. As mentioned, white salmon meat is not a sign of decay.

As for salmon not feeding once they're in the rivers, I saw salmon very actively feeding on flies last night. There was no mistaking it. The same fish kept rising and rising and rising, and gobbling flies off the surface, just as the parr were.

So they don't just hit off aggression, they hit off extinct, and I would be surprised if they weren't digesting those flies. Someone mentioned on the forum that their digestion completely stops when they enter the rivers, I would like to see a study/proof of that.

[grubman]

At my last workplace everyone would say "Sh!t flows downhill". Lake O is the lowest and the other Great Lakes drain into it.

There used to be commercial fishing on the GLs, I don't know maybe 100 years ago before we started to use it as a toilet.

I heard that by the time you drink as glass of tap water in Toronto, that water has already been thru 5 people. And if you drink the water in Montreal the same water has been thru 8 people. Lake Michigan is the dirtiest filthest most polluted of all the GLs and it gets filtered and bottled into Nestle's Pure Life bottled water, yummy.

We made our own mess and still are making it and now suffer the consequences. I would not eat the fish from Lake O. Mercury is naturally occuring and that's why the northern walleyes contain it. But they don't have the other toxins like PCB, industrial run-off, insecticides and endocrine disruptors. Nature of Things did a show about the natives in the Sarnia area and suspected how the endocrine disruptors may be the cause of low male birth rates and the high incidents of some cancers. Remember the Lake St. Clair blob? Where did it go? It's only a matter of time when the oceans will be as polluted as the GLs.

The meat colour, my belief, is the result of it's diet and the fact that they are land locked.

The Guide to Eating Sportfish might be a toned down version. If they really told us what Sh!t is really in the fish environmentallist would have a field day. I would not eat anything from Lake O. Better to go to Georgian Bay or Lake Superior. I'm gonna do a side by side comparison of GB and Lake O fish. Problem is I never fished GB so don't know where are good places to fish.

[NOTTA STEELER]

Salmon coming from Georgian Bay waters are mixed , some have white meat and some have orangey , to almost reddish meat . What I was informed of from a MNR person is that it depends on their diet . Even more evident are gum colour of alot of Chinnys out of G.Bay , fish IDs indicate that Chinook have black gums .. we're finding more and more Chinooks with grey to even pinkish white gums , possibly hybreds .......Take the corn away from a chicken and the egg yokes are greyish white , not appetizing at all.

[FishingNoob]

Salmon coming from Georgian Bay waters are mixed , some have white meat and some have orangey , to almost reddish meat . What I was informed of from a MNR person is that it depends on their diet . Even more evident are gum colour of alot of Chinnys out of G.Bay , fish IDs indicate that Chinook have black gums .. we're finding more and more Chinooks with grey to even pinkish white gums , possibly hybreds .......Take the corn away from a chicken and the egg yokes are greyish white , not appetizing at all.

OT: Actually corn has nothing to do with the colour of chicken eggs, it is the amount of green stuff the chickens eat, such as dandelions, lettuce, grass, etc that effect the colour of the yolk.

Corn does play an important role in the diet of chickens but not what you think it does. It provides the hens enough fat to produce the eggs and keep their body weight. It is also used as a treat for chickens in cold whether countries where they cannot leave the coop and forage for bugs, leaves and worms in the winter because of the snow.

Another cool thing about chickens is that if the chicken has coloured ear lobs the chicken will lay a brown or colorful egg. If the ear lobes are white the egg shell will be white. A chicken breed called Ameraucana or Araucana are the only breeds that lay green, blue or pink eggs.

I'm kinda obsessed about Chickens. No dis-respect meant in anyway.

[grubman]

Noob
That's a lot of cool info on the humble chicken. You seem to really know "chicks". Are there alot of varieties? What's so special about the Rhode Island Red?

The things they do to chickens and the eggs turns me off eating them. Anti-biotic injections, arsenic in the feed....etc. Have you seen the documentary Food Inc?

[salmotrutta]

Just find a local farmer you can trust, you can probably get them for $2 per dozen.

[schnip]

chickens have ears?

[salmotrutta]

chickens have ears?

If they couldn't hear, they would have become extinct before we ever got around to raising them

[FishingNoob]

Noob
That's a lot of cool info on the humble chicken. You seem to really know "chicks". Are there alot of varieties? What's so special about the Rhode Island Red?

The things they do to chickens and the eggs turns me off eating them. Anti-biotic injections, arsenic in the feed....etc. Have you seen the documentary Food Inc?

Thanks. There are a lot of varieties of chickens. I don' t the number off my head...

Truthfully their is nothing too special about the Rhode Island Reds. Alot of the other breeds are just as good as it now. What made it special in the past was the fact that it was really the first bird that was big enough to be a meat bird and also laid enough eggs to be an egg production bird.

I support family farms, but I find a lot of the information about "factory farmed" hens is false as it is outdated. Ontario Egg farmers have very strict rules for how the hens are to be treated and what they are to be feed. In truth the majority of the hens you find in these "factory farms" as healthier then the ones you'd find in a famer's field. I've never seen "Food Inc" but you have to remember that when you watch documentaries about animal cruelty it is propaganda just like when you watch videos from a farmers perspective.

[FishingNoob]

Just find a local farmer you can trust, you can probably get them for $2 per dozen.

If you do buy eggs from a local farmer make sure you know whether the eggs have been "washed" or not. Un-washed eggs will have a membrane that allows them to last out of the fridge for 1 month and washed eggs have to go into the fridge as the membrane is missing.

[basshat22]

I was reading somewhere that west coast salmon and some farmed varieties have that signature flesh colour from a steady diet of crustaceans.

Also. I just finished reading about chickens and their eggs from some web forum. It was very enlightening.

[Float_On]

Ontario chicken forums...

So do you use a shot line when fishing chickens?