Slowly picking my way thru cropping and re-sizing all the pics in both cameras. Man there's a ton in there!

Labor Day weekend would find me taking a forced break from Buoy 10 after serious motor/boat issues earlier in the week. Like a good neighbor, Katosan was there to salvage my long weekend.

We hopped aboard his buddy Rich's SeaSwirl on Friday morning. Rich moors his cruiser at the Ocean Shores Marina where daybreak found just enough water to let us escape into the North Bay. Once underway, the boys put together the day's game plan for the good Doc.

Rich and Katosan had a good report from another one of their buddies from the previous day that led us right to the biggun's. It was easliy THE slam dunk big king day of the season for all three of us.

Rich led the pack with a fat whitey, then less than an hour later proceeded to hook and land the biggest platinum PIG of the day.... gorgeous URB hen! Another Orygun 40 bites the dust!

Or is that a W'port 40?

I followed thru with another fat white buck 55' down using Old Salty gear and old school herring.

Katosan would bring up the rear with another chunky URB hen.

Couple of big fat coho would round out the boat limit.

Lots of good groceries once we got back! The difference between red and white kings was striking on the cutting table.

Saturday would find me and Katosan aboard his vessel. Motored into the North Bay to find the tuna fleet inside the harbor seining bait.... even guys from San Diego. We returned to the same general area to find another limit of salmon. Had a tough time staying off the sub- and barely-legal kings, and never did find the pigs we encountered the day before. Came home with a king and coho apiece. On the way back to the OS Marina, couple of tuna boats were still at it making bait.

The following day would be our last hurrah for 2010 albacore.

Got up at o'dark early to try to race outta the OS Marina BEFORE low water for the season's final attempt at tuna... the first for me.

Scrambled to get ALL the gear on the boat, unleashed her from the dock and started motoring out of the marina. We got all of 10 yards out when we struck mud. No problem.... just lift the big motor and deploy the kicker. Went another 10 ft before we were wedged tight!

Spent the pre-dawn darkness hunkered down in the boat while waiting for the tide to run the rest of the way out and flood back in. Boy was it ever cold, as the wind put even more bite into the morning chill. With each passing hour, the wind just got stronger and stronger. The sun finally came up and all of Katosans buddy's finally showed up at the dock as we pulled back into Katosan's slip.

Waited a little longer to see if the wind was gonna lay down, but it never did. So much for tuna....

Spent a stormy Labor Day just lounging and napping at Chez Katosan. Just as well, 'cause I really needed the rest! These will have to wait till next year......

Great pics Francis.

What's your opinion of the flavor of an ocean-caught white king compared to it's red-meated counterpart? I have my own opinions....just curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Same with me. We got a 35# white king at Westport this summer. I was disappointed with the taste.
I've taken white kings out of Neah and even here in the Sound and they tasted fine.

Love the taste of white kings. Consistently and exceptionally oily and flavorful. There's got to be something about lipid metabolism that accounts for this, and it likely is something unique to their fat cells. The adipocytes in white kings are physiologically different. The fact that these kings are white is simply because they lack the enzyme to store fat-soluble vitamin A as the red-orange pigment B-carotene (basically two vitamin-A molecules linked tail-to-tail). Plain old vitamin-A is colorless, hence the white meat.

Red kings on the other hand are all over the map in oil content and flavor.... esp in the ocean where you are dealing with mixed stocks that change in composition at different times of the year. The red kings you catch outta Westport are a mixed bag of feeders, CR summer spawners, lower CR fall spawners, tule spawners, fall URB spawners, and a handful of WA coastal fall spawners. Eating quality from all those stocks is highly variable.

Bottom line, white kings are consistently good, red kings can leave you disappointed. That said, the finest piece of ocean salmon to grace my lips in 2010 was the collar off of Katosan's red king.

i wouldnt call any of the fish in these pictures white kings, a white king actually has white meat, these all have a tint of orange to them.

Can ya tell if a King is white or red meated before killing?

I would release a white one as that meat just looks yucky to me. But,
I don't eat fish anyhow!

fp

this isnt a white king, a white king has white meat like a halibut

You don't have to kill it to tell, but unless your boat has really low sides (not the best for the ocean) you have to bring 'em aboard to tell. Once you do that you are legally obligated to tag the fish. Technically, at that point the fish is legally dead.

That aside, here's how you tell. Lift the gill plate and look at the translucent apex of the collar where it inserts mid-throat. If you see red there, it's a red king.

Look at the pic below. The upside down kings are obviously red by looking at the cut open belly cavity. But now look at the other two. Even though you can't see the red meat in the belly cavity the red patch at the tip of the collar is the dead giveaway.... and yes, without having to kill the fish.

Yep, one of them had a few patchy swirls of pale orange marbled into the backstraps, and even a hint in the front belly slab.

Not all white kings are pure white. Some are mosaics, or chimeras, where some of the cells have the ability to store B-carotene while the rest do not.

Mosaics occur throughout the animal kingdom... yes even humans.

MOSAIC: A chimera; a tissue containing two or more genetically distinct cell types or an individual composed of such tissues

One such a condition is anhidrotic ectodermal dysplasia. Males carrying the responsible allele (let us call it d ) in its hemizygous condition have no sweat glands. A heterozygous (D/d ) female has a mosaic of D and d sectors across her body, as shown in Figure 2-32 .

I once posted a pic I lifted from another website that shows a human mosiac with strikingly marbled skin, but I can't seem to find it in any searches of my old posts. I did come across this pearl from 2005 (06-07-05)

A genetic mosaic is a creature whose body is built of a mixture of cells of two or more different genotypes. Some of the cells have the genes that code for white flesh while other cells have the genes that code for red flesh. For a wild salmon to have this, it would probably mean the same egg was fertilized by two different sperm. (That's not too far fetched when you consider the spawning orgies salmonids are known for... anyone remember those cool x-rated spawning videos from last year's board?)

This condition happens naturally but it can also be artificially induced. Geneticists have developed a strain of tetragenic mice (four parents) that are used in animal research.

Mosaic mouse:


Here's a mosaic pigeon:

My experiences are similar with ocean-caught white kings.

A lot of people, myself included for a long time, have a hard time getting past "less asthetically pleasing look" of a white-meated king....ocean-caught white meat automatically equates to skanky spawner meat. Of course, this is ridiculous for those who know. I'm sad to say I gave away more than a few back in the day, namely because I was stubborn and self-righteously convinced they were inferior.....basically, I used the rationale of a dumb-ass. Then, a decade or so ago I was at a friend's BBQ. Salmon was on the menu and it was some of the best stuff I'd ever had cooked that way....white meated king!

Needless to say, they aren't given away anymore.

Man with all that fish luck I hope you hit the poker table on the way out of town ( Nice pics. ) I always thought it was there diet as to why the meat was white, thanks for the lesson !

Ok found it...

DANG!

You should have attended the CCA meeting we had the following Tuesday after those fish were caught. No way I was gonna let those prime white king fillets see a freezer, but I simply had too much meat to consume on my own. I was on a tear to find friends and colleagues who would enjoy some "ivory king" fillets fresh. Showed up at the CCA meeting with the last of the white kings (cleanly chunked out ala fNp) and could only get one taker.

Softbite and the Mrs. sure enjoyed their first sample of white king.

Sorry I didn't call you, Eric. Next time I know who to contact if I've got surplus!

Deal!

I don't fish the ocean much anymore so that would be a treat....may even see some of your favorite single malt in a swap.

OK "marbled" is probably more technically correct.

Found this site touting the virtues of WA's underappreciated "marbled" king....

http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/ark_product_detail/washington_marbled_chinook_salmon

This white/red thing fascinates me. I for one can't tell ANY taste diffrence. Nor could more than 15 people I did a blind taste test with.

(I had two non seasoned fillets one white, one red, BBQed at same time and place) Not one person could tell the diffeence. After a lot of testing I began giving my blindfolded subjects a bite of red followed by another bite of red. Most would say something like. "yeah, that first one was definately a white."


Yet, many folks I respect swear there is a big diffrence.

Doc, if you have another fall gathering we can try this again.

I have looked high and low for a detailed analysis of all aspects of white vs red and can't find much. The one set of tests I did find reflected no appreciable diffrence.

Abstract
Sexually mature chinook salmon were classified as red- and white-fleshed, based on the carotenoid levels of muscle and integument. Chinook salmon with high levels of total carotenoids in either muscle or integument were regarded as red-fleshed, regardless of their muscle color. The salmon with low carotenoid levels of muscle and integument were considered white-fleshed. There were no significant differences in muscle compositions of moisture, protein, and lipid. The changes in “a” value, which expresses the red color of the muscle, were parallel with those of the carotenoid levels, as indicated by a coefficient of correlation of 0.95, while no close correlation (r = 0.09) was found between lipid and carotenoid levels of red- and white-fleshed salmon. These results suggested that changes of muscle composition occurring during spawning migration of chinook salmon are related to their physiological state, but not their muscle color type.