I caught a downriver fish, and barbecued it up, and it tasted absolutely fabulous. If I put this fish right next to a fresh fish, I most likely couldn't have told you which was which. Is this usually the case? I keep hearing negetive things about how downriver fish taste.

We have cooked several coastal downers and they ate just fine. That mite not be the case for inland fish.

To each his own...

Personally my motto is "Without the fat, they eat like crap."

That should make it pretty obvious where a downrunner steelhead fits into my idea of fine dining. The only way a fresh fish and a spent fish could be of comparable eating quality is if someone overcooks the "freshy" to the point that most of the fat is gone..... "nice and dry and flakey" as some folks like to say. No thanks!

Overcooking is the biggest culinary mistake when it comes to preparing fish. Total cooking time is 10 minutes per inch of thickness.... MAX! As soon as the color of the flesh becomes opaque, it's done.

fnp has a good point. Some folks like their fish cooked dry, which doesn't appeal to me.

Another factor is the gender....a buck holds it's flavor much, much better than a hen, which when spent tastes more like cardboard than fish, in my opinion.

I believe it may depend on just how "downriver" the fish is...

I've caught steelhead that upon cleaning appear to have recently spawned and they were fine to eat. However, the absolute worst fish, I attempted to eat was a bright, but skinny appearing, hatchery steelhead out of the Bogey. The flesh turned into a paste; when cooked... Being a young, naive steelheader at the time, I got a first hand taste of a true "downriver" fish.

If it ain't chrome it don't go home...

I'm with FishNphysician. For most of the us thing that makes a salmonid the finest eating is the fat content. That's why the Columbia springers are so prized and why many salmon gourmets insist on using the chinook belly strips for smoking. Downriver fish have almost no fat. Nuff said.

Would you eat a spawned out salmon? Just release down-river steelhead as these fish have the potential to come back next year even bigger.

What Rob Allen said...

rob wouldnt be eating fish, if he lived in upper idaho, fishing for steelies.....

Whats chrome mean ??? for that matter, whats a down river fish ??? we don't have either of those.

Hey Fishinjunky15, a spawned out salmon is a lot different than a spawned out steelhead. Spawned out salmon are on their way to dying, while spawned out steelhead are not.

On some of those hatchery fish that basically ripen quickly and come in "ready to dump" there really is not a lot of diference between a hen that will soon lose its eggs versus one that just did. Neither has been in the river any length of time, so the outward appearence will be of a very bright fish. Belly walls will be thin on both, flesh will be same color,etc. I'm not saying either would be great on the table, but I'm sure both would be about equally edible.

I agree with gseigal.

Ugh to eating "down river steelhead"...

If its "dark, or skinny" the fish is released to maybe return next year.

Agree with the "Doc" on fat content and how to cook fish or seafood in general. I have the luxury of being able to fish year around, now. I only cook steelhead or salmon on a charcoal barBque, and add some alder wood or leaves in the summer time....... mmmmm good!!!

Just don't "overcook".......

"Worse day sport fishing, still better that the best day working"

Personally, I don't think fresh steelhead are all that hot, so I don't eat them, either. As the years go on, about all I want to eat anymore is spring run chinook. All else pales in comparison. Salt water silvers are great, too. Some of the rest, and for some reason steelhead strike me this way, as being simply fishy tasting matrixes for application of a sauce. As for steelhead, I love to catch them, but I'd rather eat chicken. I find them to be tough, if they were big enough to be interesting when caught. It could easily be that I just suck as a cook.