Puttin' kings in the box at Buoy 10 reminds me a lot of that famous line from Forrest Gump.... you never know what your gonna get.

Esp so when the boat rules mandate that ALL hatchery fish MUST die!

Well, even the captain has to take one for the team.

Case in point when this green-gold hatchery tule was the first king of the day to be hoisted over the gunwale. JFC... bronze patina and edible chinook don't generally go hand in hand, but oh well.... not gonna break my own rule.

So what do you guys think? Eater? Or is the good Doc nuts?

A bit later in the day Twitch hooks up with a gleaming platinum snowbelly that's reflectling every subtle hue of UV flash tape from its sides. Bound to be a rocket red URB, right?

The day before, jack caught this beauty....



A prime eater at the cutting table, right?

OK so back to that patina bronze tule.

Here's what the other end of that head looked like....



And here's a sneak peek at the rest of the meat before taking a fillet knife to the carcass.



Proof positive that all tules are NOT created equal.

Well here's that box of chocolates all laid out after f4b and I got 'em all cut up....



Starting from the upper left and working clockwise...

White king (Twitch's), a tray of Youngs Bay bright, a tray with my tule (SZ's LRB?), a tray of 2-tone chrome-bright tule, a tray of true URB, and a tray of rocket red coho.

Closeup of the whitey...






Here's a closeup of my tule with just a hint of the creamsicle meat at the dorsal fin insertion....





And here's the classic 2-tone creamsicle muscle bundles from Jack's 2-tone chromer tule....





And here's the non-chinook closeup....





And finally an early bonus I found in one of the YB brights.... Easter Eggs!

Wasn't a rule than....we call me them LRB's.AKA lower river brights. Good luck,


SZ

Doc,
The 2 photos are the same and all I see is nice red meat with a surprising layer of fat.
How did it taste?
Rick

OOOPS! Got distracted while fixin' and feastin' on a PRIME rib steak and king crab dinner courtesy of my big Teddy Bear bud, Achewter. Got the pics fixed now.

As for the taste.... well, as Tony the Tiger would say, "They're G-R-E-A-T!"

Actually sliced some fresh for the camp dinner party that same night.

Note to self.....when ... fishing for mahimahi...bring Doc...to fillet them....mad surgical skills...I'll bring the Lagavulin if he brings the knife...

I remember getting a few white chinook fishing in the sound a couple years ago. Everyone was freaking about the "white king", like it was the rare white beast sought by Capt Ahab or something. Didn't taste any better than the regular to me, in fact I preferred the deep-orange flesh myself.

Hey Doc, what's the secret to carving that collar so nice? Everytime I try that it looks like a kiddies' scissors class has cut it up for a paper doll...

It all starts with precision in removing the gills/guts when initially cleaning the fish. Seems silly to explain how to clean a fish since everyone already "knows" how, but there are some tips to remember if you intend to save those collars. If you learned to clean trout as a young lad by stripping away the gills/pecs/guts in one fell swoop, you have to unlearn all of that, as the collars/pecs are lost in that process.

HERE GOES...

Release the bottom of the gills by severing the tip of the isthmus (pointy attachment of belly to the gillplate/lower jaw) from both sides. Grasp all of the gills from both sides in one big handful with your non-dominant hand. With your dominant hand, thrust your fillet knife thru and thru across the membrane connecting the gills to the bony collar, at the very top next to the spine, knife edge directed toward the belly (YES the blade is extremely close and immediately behind your non-dominant hand). Slice the entire membrane, tracing the C-shape along the inside edge of the bony collar, releasing the gills cleanly from the collar. Now rip out the gills in one wad where they attach at the top to the roof of the mouth/head.

If you haven't already done so, split the belly between the pecs and right up the middle of the isthmus. Pay attention to the diaphragm, the membranous wall separating the belly cavity in back from the heart cavity up front. Cut the diaphragm away on either side of the heart/esophagus by starting at the top near the spine and slicing toward the belly, keeping the blade tight to the inside of the body wall as you go. Now strip out all the guts in one piece (diaphragm/heart/esophagus, stomach, organs and entrails are all attached).

I realize thats a LONG explanation, but it really is very quick...

release the bottom bony attachment,
C-cut to release gills,
rip out gills at top attachment,
release diaphragm,
strip guts.

No closeup but the steps are shown in JesseM's tumor video.




Now you are ready to cut out the collar in three easy steps.

1) Long sweeping vertical cut diagonally behind the pec fin... cut deep all the way to the spine and continue thru-and-thru the front belly flap. How far back you make the cut depends on how meaty you want your collar piece to be. The further back you cut it, the meatier it is, but remember you are basically stealing off the front of your normal fillet.

2) Short deep diagonal cut at the top of the collar, following the demarcation between scaled body skin and naked head skin.... cut deep all the way to the spine. (Obviously, this step is NOT necessary if the head was already removed at the time of initial cleaning)

3) Flat undermining cut connecting 1) and 2) tight to the spine... pretend you are filleting the collar away from the spine.

Perfect, thanks Doc!

Why do you gill and gut them if you are going to fillet them?

I've personally never let the color of the meat sway what I believe the flavor to be....

All CR fall chinook in my opinion are smokers.. They're 60 - 100% mature and lack any quantity of fat/oil to give the flavor.

Summer kings in the CR are the last fish that migrates through in the calendar year that hit's my dinner plate and I don't prefer those much past July 1st...

Yeah it sounds like a fish snob but you can't make chicken soup out of chicken [Bleeeeep!]...

Keith

The flavor of tules is lacking at best.. Great for pickling and smoking though. I disagree on URBS, I think they are every bit as good as a Willamette springer if they are cared for well. We bleed and Ice all of the fish on my boat and they taste good.. No ice, no bueno even on springers.

Every fish caught in my boat is gilled and gutted shortly after being caught. This includes stripping the midline kidney from the spine.

That gets rid of all the bloody foul and rapidly decomposing elements of the dead carcass, leaving only the edible meat completely encased in skin and natural membranes. These act as natural barriers to bacterial invasion of the flesh, esp on an extended trip. The fish won't be cut for several days til I get home.

Even with good refrigeration, the single biggest factor in accelerating spoilage is exposure and handling. Once you fillet, the meat immediately becomes exposed.... and it must consequently be handled.... thus inocculating it with all manner of bacteria from your hands and working surfaces. Working on a wet surface facilitates the transfer of that bacterial load by an order of magnitude. The time clock to spoilage is now set to fast forward. Kick it up a notch if you then throw all of the fillets together in a plastic bag to allow exposed flesh to marinate in slime.

If I'm short on space in the ice chest, I'll concede to cutting off the heads and tails, exposing only a limited cross section of meat in the process.

My goal is to delay filleting for as long as possible to maintain shelf life. I cut the fish when I am ready to distribute the bounty to friends/family, or when I am ready to prepare it for my own consumption.

Another reason to gut before filleting is to strip out the kidney tissue in order to reduce bloody contamination of the meat. Even if you bleed the fish very well, there is still a lot of residual blood in the kidney that does NOT run out even with the aid of gravity. That tissue is like a bloody sponge. There are vessels from the kidney emerging at the spine and adjacent to each rib. If you are good about keeping your blade tight against the bones, these vessels will be severed.... and each WILL bleed if the kidney is still intact. There will be negligible to zero bleeding if the kidney is removed first.

EAch fish is indeed lile a piece of chocolate in the box. You don't know how tasty it will be until you take a bite.

Though of course with experience one can ID the various chocolate pieces (fish) that are your favorites on appearance alone.

Curt

I smoked some of that Two Tone Tule, it was good chit.

I claimed the collars on the whitey for little ol' me.

Then laced the rest with special Alaskan rub and shared with the good folks at StamFest.

That was some good chocolate.

Cool! I couldn't swing this past StamFest, so I'm glad to know at least a fish I caught did...