After reading all the discussion about Copper River chinok, I wondered how we feel about the taste of our various salmon species.

Gotta go with either a fresh sockeye or a fresh springer.

Fresh Chums LOL

Fresh Springers!!!

L J

Fresh Springers!!!

L J

the ones that i catch

You didn't give us a choice between fall run and spring run chinook. I personally won't eat a stinky fall run but love springers. The Duck

I agree with the Duck, Springers all the way. Fall fish get given away.

Caught a June hog last year that was the best tasting fish ive ever had. Last year caught some fall "up river brights" that were also very very good and very bright.

Dark Hoodsport Chums are the best LOL HAHAH

Springer followed by reds.

SPRINGERS!!!

The one's off my grill

I'd have to vote for a bled out fresh, chrome springer as #1, second would be a 4-5lb salt fresh Coho...

I love the taste of a fresh Springer but I bought some farm raised Atlantic at Costco the other day and it was fantastic. Pound for pound it was as good as ANY wild fish I have ever eaten and I eat a lot of fish.

Fresh river caught HUMPY. Bigger the HUMP the better.

No, I love fresh sockeye, but do not get much.
I ate a lot of chrome bright summer run staelhead, and it stacked up to most salmon I have eaten.

Fishbreath:

I agree with you about the farm raised salmon. I think one reason they are so tasty is that they are cleaned and bled quickly and rushed to the store. I suspect the farmed salmon in the stores is 3 to 7 days fresher than the commercial fish.

Another reson some folks prefer atlantica is they tend to be milder flavor. If you want a strong salmon flavor you may prefer chinok, coho or sockeye. If you like a more delicate flavor you may prefer chum or atlantics.

Wild salmon!!

1. Springers - by far.....
2. Sockeye
3. Summer-run steelhead (much better than winter run fish)
4. Fall king
5. Coho
6. Winter-Run steelhead
7. Pink - C&R
8. Chum - C&R

Of course this is all personal preference
1) Fresh saltwater coho
2) Springer
3) Farmed Atlantic(have to admit Costco sells a mean salmon)
4) Sockeye (Just too dry for me. I like my fish, more fishy!)
5) King
6) Why eat pinks and chums when 1-5 are available?

dead ones!

Personally, I like steelhead better.

I don't know what salmon tastes best, but I can imagine which tastes worse: one time I took a coworker chum fishing, cuz he'd fit right in with that crowd. He's from New Mexico and he caught several mangey dogs. I told him to smoke the ones he kept. He and his wife decided to bake and eat one that he was particularly proud of. Yuuuuuuuch!

He said it tasted great!

A White fleshed "spring" caught off west coast of Vancouver Island. Best fish I have ever et.

Spring in Canadian is not to be confused with springer!

Bro bro bro, you don't even know. Dark rotting Hoodsport Chums are great table fare! LOL HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

What do you think I think?

anything that is fresh. Fresh salmon is SO good. From the boat to the grill is the only way.


Farmed Atlantic???? are you crazy. That is some of the worst fish I have ever eaten. tastes like what they eat... dog food.

Hey D3Smartie, you really ate dog food before? LOL I'm just kidding

Depends how it's cooked plus seasoning...

I like sockeye, but it is only seasonal at best.
My numero uno preference is Blackmouth.. I imagine my family and I eat upwards of 100 pounds or so a year...

By far the best salmon (Blackmouth) recipe I have came up with is:

Marinate filets in Garlic Balsmic dressing for 4 hours. Cold smoke in mesquite until meat is firm. Cook and bast over open flame until meat starts to lightly flake.

Suprisingly the mesquite doesn't have the bite it normally would. It gives a nice wood pit flavor.

Probably have to go wih the sockeye, only get those occasionally and just got through filling the freezer with Columbia springers - the one's we couldn't eat quite fast enough anyway - so I'm kind of tired of them at the moment ( what a problem!). Except for eating fresh kings, silvers, blackmouth, and steelhead in season, sockeye and Columbia springers are the only salmon I go out of my way to eat, and even vacpac and save for later, everything else gets smoked and mostly given to the relatives or taken to potlucks.

Sockeye

I Like Sockeye the best. But any others seasoned and Q'd up right are mighty tasty.

I bet you wont beleive this, no one did until they tried it. I did a blindfolded test in which folks ate unseasoned white chinook from the charlottes and unseasoned red chinook from the charlottes. Both fish caught same day. Both fish treated exactly the same. Not one person could correctly identify the fish as white or red by taste.
What was really funny was that near the end of the test we would give a person two bites both of the same colored salmon. Often they would say something like . "Oh yes, that first was definately white" or visa versa.

Because people's tastes differ! I have a friend who operates a B.C. lodge. He see and has the chance to eat sparkling fresh fish from May through Sept. His personal preference is chums.

I think folks who do not like a strong salmon taste prefer atlantics and chum .

I too get to eat lots of fresh salmon and steelhead. My top choice is Columbia River chinok. Next would be chrome bright ocean caught chum.


If atlantics taste like dog food. America sure loves dog food! We eat hundreds of tons of it every year. Much of it served in top flight resturants,

Fresh Springer and Fresh Sockeye are right up at the top. I eat far more springer though as there are not many sport opportunities for sockeye (around these parts), and I am adamant about not eating commercial caught fish. It just gives me an excuse, to make it up to Alaska or BC to get more sockeye

I'll eat atlantics but only if I caught them myself. Fresh atlantic is good, but farm raised stuff is terrible in comparison to anything we catch out in the salt or on the rivers.
The reason that people eat so much is because it is the whole idea of eating salmon, and most people dont even know what good salmon tastes likes. The majority of the people that like the farm raised fish, i would doubt have ever had kings or cohos.

kings or silvers, bright chum if it's smoked absolutely no farmed fish don't care for the taste of it and don't like what i have been reading about what the fish farmers are feeding them also don't like the fact that there is color added to costcos atlantic salmon i like to try and eat half way healthy foods fresh fish homegrown veges (etc) and farmed fish doesn't fit into that category

D3Smartie,

Your post......

"farm raised stuff is terrible in comparison to anything we catch out in the salt or on the rivers"
"The majority of the people that like the farm raised fish, i would doubt have ever had kings or cohos"

Have you ever had the Costco Atlantic Salmon? I would have to say you have not. I think I can safely say I've eaten more fish than you since I've been eating fish all my life and I'm older than you, at least by your picture you have posted. I've eaten every variety of fresh wild fish. Sockeye, Columbia River Springs, Fraser Red Springs, Fraser Sockeye, Coho and Summer and Winter Steelhead. In fact we just got a nice Red Spring on the Fraser last week and I cooked up a piece of the wild fish and a piece of the Atlantic and I'd have to say the Atlantic was probably better. Nice and mild and very fatty. Almost too rich when it was cooked up. I think you better give it a try before you poo-poo it!

Can't say that I have eaten too many fish caught in our local rivers, but I tend to prefer salmon straight from the SALT.

TOP THREE ARE:
1. Sockeye from the Salt are my Favorite

Blackmouth or Fresh Coho are a close 2/3

Haven't had much opportunity to catch the returning Chinook, but from what I remember, they are delicious too.

In preparing them - SIMPLE = BETTER for me!

AND If I stand there long enough, I may someday get to try a winter run saltwater-caught Steelhead !

The best one is the next one!

That must be why you have fish breath, Fishbreath!

Springer is the best I've eaten, some amazing stuff. Interesting to hear so many fishermen applauding the flavor of Costco farm-raised, might have to give it a try sometime (if my freezer ever gets empty...)

I'd have to say fresh/bright Snohomsih Pinks because i don't remember eating fresh springers or fresh sockeye

1.July Silvers
2. Springers