Let us not forget the most important ingredient. Good quality fish! If you put in some humpy that has been out in the sun all day or freezer burn meat or some post spawn chum (errrg), soooorrry. It comes down to this; you get what you start with. If you want to try to smoke bad stuff you’ll end up with bad stuff. All the pacific salmonids smoke well if they are prepared properly. Immature chinook (blackmouth) is excellent cuz they are high in oil content from feeding on candlefish. Coho are excellent cuz everybody loves red meat. Humpys are good if you ice them after catching. I think chum need some coloring and additives like soy sauce and brown sugar etc however they have more than enough natural fat/oil to make good smoke if not too spawned out. A different species, Black cod (sablefish), is an excellent presentation to the table on any of the above recipes. Black cod has enough oil in it even though it has white meat. Dry brines/wet brines all work. Just don’t kill a fish and say "it’ll smoke" then throw it in the ditch on the way home.

Beezer