38 replies to this topic

[Christopher K]

TBH the only salmon in the world right now that are worth eating are those from Alaska and the very northern reaches of BC, the disease issues caused by pen farming right now is rediculous. BTW, if any of you ever visit a fish cleaning station on the great lakes the meat is orange, the meat turns white when they start entering the rivers, I doubt very highly that it's due to out lack of shrimp/krill.

[BowSlayer]

I've taken a few salmon this year, a couple for friends and a couple for me, 1 gbay fish and 1 lake o, both had orange/pinkish meat and both were caught in rivers and one was quite a ways up from the lake (9km) it was chrome silver in colour and orange/pinkish meat, the ones I've kept in previous years trolling in the lake (both lake o and gbay) have had light orange meat, the gbay ones at times have a bit of a darker orange tinge and are better tasting but lake o fish are not as bad as they're taken for. Also if you take a brown/yellow/black/white falling apart, barely alive fish it will have white meat, that i can guarantee.

[Knuguy]

2 separate and quite unrelated issues are being discussed here: (1) colour of meat (2)contaminants.

 

Re colour----any whitish speck or brown that I've tasted has had a watery texture, not firm like normal orange/pink. To me the taste was quite inferior.

 

Some of you are not comparing proverbial apples and apples. Chinooks look and taste very different from Atlantic salmon. In most all cases it's Atlantic you will see for sale in the stores(Even in Port Alberni BC which proclaims itself to be the salmon capital of the world---but I digress). If you have ever tasted wild Atlantic you'll know how much better it tastes than the farmed stuff. One is muscular like an elite athlete, used to swimming upstream and jumping rapids. The others are couch potatoes. 

[DitchWizard]

Lake Ontario's is pollution has to do with it being the lake of lowest elevation and decades of industrial waste. It is the lake where all the runoff from the other lakes collects, the steel mills in the US had a big effect. Just because it looks clean doesn't mean it is. 

I sure wouldn't eat any fish that they recommends zero servings a month but you guys can have at it if you want. As far as flesh, I don't bonk that many fish but I have never seen any white flesh in any bow or salmon I kill. 

[cptpronin]

Eating the flesh of one salmon from the river is not going to harm you.  Even if some necrosis was setting in, if you thoroughly cooked it to where the flesh flakes apart with a fork, you would have killed off any pathogens.

 

The hard metal contaminates are mostly in the fatty tissues around the belly and spine.  Best not to eat those parts of the fillets if you are concerned.  Sad fact is almost all salmon on and off the shelf are contaminated with heavy metals.  Do not kid yourself when you read the warnings on a tin can.

 

Fun fact: the first nations of BC harvest spawning river salmon as part of their seasonal diet, as they have been for centuries before my ancestors ever arrived.

 

You'll survive and it will taste good off the grill.

[DitchWizard]

2 separate and quite unrelated issues are being discussed here: (1) colour of meat (2)contaminants.

 

Re colour----any whitish speck or brown that I've tasted has had a watery texture, not firm like normal orange/pink. To me the taste was quite inferior.

 

Some of you are not comparing proverbial apples and apples. Chinooks look and taste very different from Atlantic salmon. In most all cases it's Atlantic you will see for sale in the stores(Even in Port Alberni BC which proclaims itself to be the salmon capital of the world---but I digress). If you have ever tasted wild Atlantic you'll know how much better it tastes than the farmed stuff. One is muscular like an elite athlete, used to swimming upstream and jumping rapids. The others are couch potatoes. 

I think you mean Pacific salmon not Atlantic lol

[Swing4Steel]

Why? Lots of places allow retention of atlanics and commercial fishing still exists. I've ate atlanics legally angled in Ontario

[christotheashto]

i fish gbay pretty well exclusively and all fish i've ever filleted have been red/orange/pink flesh. worth mentioning i don't harvest dirty old boots though lol

[Christopher K]

I think you mean Pacific salmon not Atlantic lol

No, he means atlantic, most of the atlantics you see for sale here are farmed in bc, they're the ones screwing up the water quality in the Fraser.

[chinooky]

[quote name="Knuguy" post="315241" timestamp="1410103714"]

2 separate and quite unrelated issues are being discussed here: (1) colour of meat (2)contaminants.

Re colour----any whitish speck or brown that I've tasted has had a watery texture, not firm like normal orange/pink. To me the taste was quite inferior.

[chinooky]

There are a few issues in this thread. Ocean or lake fish have pink/orange/red meat due to their diet. Farmed atlantics have carotenoids added to their diet to make the flesh bright.

When the fish enter the rivers, they change they stop feeding and change their metabolism to use their stored energy. Lactic acid is a byproduct which leads to flesh color change and mushy meat.

Lake O fish have higher contaminants than other great lakes because it is downstream from everyone. Having said this, we all live in cities where we breathe industrial waste everyday. I doubt that a few fish will impact you more than a cigarette, so make your own choice.

[DitchWizard]

When I look back at his comment I get in now but adding pacific raised Atlantic salmon into the convo confused me 

[steelhead101]

does any one have a recipe for chinooks that are at the spawning stage in life? we all take the roe and its a shame to not do much with the meat. dog food? compost? 

[BowSlayer]

if its chrome its good, I've tried yellowish salmon before but it tastes like crap, ounce in a lifetime mistake lol. only chrome fish for me, won't even take it for roe unless its chrome now.

[Dewy]

I have tried smoking salmon that have started to turn. It doesn't taste too bad. I have also heard of canning salmon that are in the rivers. Now I just buy roe. Much less headaches and no need to waste time curing it. Both centering angling and fish heads sell great product

[BowSlayer]

ya for steelies and browns i use fish heads brown roe, best roe I've ever used!!! For kings and cohos i use king or coho roe.

[KingoftheRiver]

The reason the meat is white is because of their diet. Salmon flesh even though you may think this is false, is naturally gray. The reason the fish have orange meat is because they are feeding on krill, shrimp, or something similar. Our fish in the lake do not have that luxury so they feed exclusively on fish. This causes their meat to turn white. Even if you go out to BC you can catch kings that have white meat.

[torco]

In terms of color of meat it could be timing and diet not sure both are mutually exclusive reasons....I had some wild salmon this year from BC and it was actually much lighter in colour than the fish I had previous.

 

A big thing for taste I find with any fish is how long between it is killed and eaten, fresher the better to me.

[NADO]

The reason the meat is white is because of their diet. Salmon flesh even though you may think this is false, is naturally gray. The reason the fish have orange meat is because they are feeding on krill, shrimp, or something similar. Our fish in the lake do not have that luxury so they feed exclusively on fish. This causes their meat to turn white. Even if you go out to BC you can catch kings that have white meat.

 

 

Exactly

 

It is 100% diet, the meat may become more white during the decaying process but it is perfectly normal for a fresh steelhead or salmon from any of the great lakes to have pale coloured flesh. I just brought a dime chrome steelhead home from a Huron Trib this weekend and to my dissapointment I found pale flesh when I cleaned it. The pale flesh is far more common in Lake Ontario than from Huron due to the food sources available but I've seen it go both ways many times on their tribs. I also caught a smaller fish that was a beautiful bright orange this weekend and I smoked them both up yesterday, the smoker covers a lot of the natural flavour from the fish but there was no noticeable difference between taste and texture with the two fish.