All season I've been catching pinks, cleaning them and icing immediately, then giving them away and personally eating the kings and silvers. Everyone I've given a pink to has said they tastes great. What is everyone doing with thier pinks?

Eat 'em. I think people who say they're bad are either catching darkies up river or letting their catch sit in the sun all day.

We did blind taste tests twice now between pinks/silvers and pinks/chinook and about half of the people actually preferred the pinks over silvers and most of the people preferred both pink and silver to chinook.

We clean and ice them immediately and eat them the same day. We had a pretty bad experience freezing them.

They also smoke up really well.

If you want to get rid of the slime on the slimmies, put them in the freezer just long enough to freeze the skin. When the skin thaws you can wash off the slime and it dosn't come back. I learned this by accident when the frig temp was set too low.

I don't eat a lot of fish anyway. I give to the guys at work anf they love them. I do try to clean them and get them on ice right away.

I like them some. My wife loves every type of salmon. So most of what I catch goes to her and my daughters.

I barbecue my fresh caught pinks(ginger/teriyaki). Putting them on ice immediately after being caught helps. If I freeze them, I use a Foodsaver vacuum sealer then smoke them later.

I only grill a fish caught same day, but I'll freeze them if I plan on doing some smoking.

That said, since I fish the rivers about 99.9% of the time, I only keep about 1 out of every 5 fish I catch.

I do the same thing with them as other salmon.....catch them, bleed them, keep them cool, BBQ or smoke. I know several people who prefer pinks to other salmon because of their very mild flavor. This is the first year I've actually vacuum packed some filets so will have to see how they turn out when thawed.

I set my cleaned fish on the grass and then hose them down with a gargen hose. The zillions of scales literally fly off and land right on the compost heap!!!!

Well I hope your kids like them. The Alaska senators just rammed through legislation requiring the Government to buy 3.6 milliom pounds of canned pinks to feed our school kids. The reason they did this is there is a huge glut of canned salmon.

I can think of worse things served in school cafeterias... :p

What could possibly be worse than canned pinks?

Hmmm, canned Mackeral...

Matt:

You got me there. I guess there's no accounting for taste. But it does piss me off that my tax dollars are going to bail out commercial fishermen who apparently aren't willing to stop fihing, even when there's no market for their catch.

surecatch, are we going to be spending more money on this canned catfood than other school lunch items? It can't (or shouldn't) be too expensive, given that they're getting less than a dime a lb. for them.

It's not like they're decimating the runs of pinks up there either. Frankly at those prices that's not a bad way to get protein in the diet for cheap.

Check this URL out:

http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/geninfo/finfish/salmon/catchval/history/pink1878.htm

I would have preferred canned pink to Scandinavian Tuna Wiggle when i was in school.

Though the Tuna Wiggle did exhibit some amazing aerodynamic qualities.

Skywalker:
Who said it was cheap? Yes the price paid to the commercials for pinks this year was as low as .02 per lb. But that's not what our government paid to buy it from huge Seattle based fish processors. My point is why fish for something no one wants, then ask the government to buy the unwanted fish. Sounds like welfare for fishermen to me.

Even if the protien is cheap, its of little value when o no one eats it. My guess is damn few yuppie high scholl kids will touch the stuff. I suspect it will go in the garbage with the canned spinach.

wonder if it was one of the gordon (slate) family firms?

I've got to say,Humpies are low on my list of fish to eat. We caught a few at Sekiu a couple weeks back. Even when cleaned ASAP,and packed in ice they still aren't real tasty IMO.

surecatch, I don't know if they still subsidize farmers that grow more wheat than the world can consume, but it's the same situation. It's not new, and it's probably not the last time it'll happen.

It's an interesting dilemma, though. Everyone's complaining about the commercials wiping out fisheries, and here we have them catching more fish than we know what to do with and the runs just keep coming back stronger. They need to figure out what it is about pinks and teach it to the reds.

Amen to that Skywalker.

I have eaten a couple of pinks in the last week and thought they were fine. Not the tastiest salmon ever, but not dog food either.

They do make great smoker fare though!

I cought two this week and took them home to eat but iam tired of smoked and bbq fish so I tried something different and it turned out great. fillet out a pink and leave the skin on. grease a pan with olive oil and lay the fillets skin down in the pan. I think the skin protects the meat from over cooking. Now pour some very chunky salsa over the top and cover it with a sliced red onion and a bell pepper then bake for 30 min at 375 or so. turned out great wife said it was the best fish yet.

Farmed Atlantic Salmon?

Hatchery trout caught on opening day?

Pinks are fine early in the season and fresh from the salt, don't try freezing them though. They smoke up good to, but so would the inside of your shoe Sill, I prefer coho and kings and try to target them if available.

I admit to being a fish snob. Can't help it; just have hyper-sensitive taste buds I guess. I've kept pinks, and they are fine when bled, iced, and kept properly. I BBQ them, as I do any salmon, since it's the best cooking method. They're fine. That's not saying they're equal to reds or good quality kings, but they really are fine table fare. I don't freeze them. That's a waste of time, energy, and fish. Pink flesh is just too soft to survive freezing and thaw out as suitable table fare. Smoke them; then freeze them. That works, and they have good texture and taste when smoked.

Pinks are not the best quality food product as salmon go, but they make a truly fine meal and good smoked salmon product. So I think they are worth keeping - at least a few of them - and fishing for. It's the fishing for them that's a hoot. What other salmon can you fish for in the lower 48 and occasionally pull in one every other cast or so? I think the state should give a greater emphasis to the social benefits of managing pinks for a "humpy holiday" every other year in north Puget Sound. They're abundant. Not hard to catch. And get a lot of people excited about salmon and fishing for them and eating them. And maybe about conserving the habitat that produces them. Not a bad concept.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

"get a lot of people excited about salmon and fishing for them and eating them. And maybe about conserving the habitat that produces them. Not a bad concept."

Bingo!

Salmo g.-
You maybe onto something!!

Not that I want more people on my waters but I think promoting pinks as the great sportfish they are for so many to the public would definately boost public awareness of the plight of our wild salmonids.

And in turn, hopefully, many will take a much greater interest in all aspects in salmon and steelhead recovery and some may then become active.

I think this idea should go farther then a simple discussion on an Internet BB...

Hey,, bleed em, clean them, chop into 2" pieces, vacuum pack, and then freeze them. CRABS LOVE THOSE PINKS!!!!!!

Hey,, bleed em, clean them, chop into 2" pieces, vacuum pack, and then freeze them. CRABS LOVE THOSE PINKS!!!!!!

I like the humpy holiday idea but see one problem. In the minds of the non-angling public, a salmon is a salmon is a salmon. They're going to see all the pinks and think that all the talk of poor returns is bunk.

Cupo,

For many this is true; ergo, education. Most people understand that there are differences when it's explained clearly and at an 8th grade reading level.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

I second the DO NOT FREEZE pink salmon advice. I caught a couple of fresh humpie hens off of Mukilteo at the end of August. I did what everyone recommended on keeping the fish fresh. I immediately cut out the gills to bleed them and kept them in a cooler with ice. I filleted both of them when I got home and put one of the fish on the grill. It was a fine meal that evening. Not as good as sox or silver meat, but we had a good meal. The other fish I kept in the freezer.

Fast forward to this weekend, I defrosted the other fish for dinner. I marinated the fish in teriyaki sauce for a few hours before grilling it. But the fish had a slight mold taste to it and was very disappointed . 2 weeks in the freezer made the fish uneatable. I even thought the marinade may cover up the moldy taste but no cando. I should have put this fish into the smoker like I did with the humpie bucks I caught (which turned out great!! ).

BTW, this is my first ever post here. I’ll try to share more of my fishing experiences and advice and to learn all I can here.

TheGoldfish

Welcome Goldfish. But I gotta say two weeks in the freezer should not produce any moldy taste on any fish. And putting teriyaki sauce on any salmon is a sin.

I wasn’t sure what the humpie would taste like after being frozen and everyone here was warning about freezing humpies. This was the first year I had ever caught humpies and the only other experiences with eating them were out of a can. That’s why I thought the marinade was a safer bet than the spices I normally use.

Now that its silver season, I shouldn’t have as serious taste problems with fish until 2005

Yeah, sinfully good! The sweet yet salty teriyaki combines perfectly with the smokey, rich flavor of a perfectly barbecued salmon!

Damn, now I am hungry.

No pinks for me please

I have had some really fine smoked pink courtesy of GutZ lately. If you give him a boat ride he may give some to you.

-rbf