I do quite a few things with salmon since I always seem to have so much of it :p I filet the fish pretty much whole with the guts removed, I start by cutting away the collar, slip the point of the filet knife into the spine at the neck and work my way to the tail along one side of the dorsal bones, working around the dorsal fin. I then filet out the tail section and work the ribs out from the tail end, a few clean sweeps and it's done on one side, then I don't turn the fish over until I've fileted the dorsal bones and fin away from the other side of the fish - this way absolutely no waste on top. Then I flip it over and complete the job. This works on any size salmon, at least up to 44 lbs., and is pretty quick.

For smoking I leave the skin on and cut the filets up small, I leave them larger if I'm vacpacking for freezing. I pull the pin bones out of smoked filets to prevent puncture of the vacpac bag and because I eat smoked fish on the run and bones are a pain. Most fish that I'm going to freeze I don't bother with bones until maybe later in the preparation process.

Other times I'll skin the fish after filleting, and when I do that I cut out the pin bones by removing a sliver of meat similar to FFA's drawing except that I cut all the way through as there is no skin. I'll then chunk the fish up bite size for stir fry, pickling, canning with mustard sauce like sardines, for bouliabaise, salmon chowder, salmon tempura, and just about anything else that will add variety to the menu, which for our family consists of a hundred or more salmon a year