Coho Salmon - great for Fishing, Cooking, and Eating!

Hi. I'm Chef Keem. My dream job as the executive chef of the Driftwood Lodge in SE Alaska allows me every year to spend adventurous weeks in the wilderness of this great state. One of the fringe benefits is to escape the almost unbearable summer heat in my home town - Austin, Texas.
Alaska offers a huge variety of attractions for all types of vacationers. This lens will tell you about the silver or coho salmon. Enjoy!
This lens at a glance:
- I didn't really like "salmon"...
- Fishing for silver...
- Coho Salmon, as described by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game
- Chef Keem's Coho Cooking Clip
- Lodges, Knives, Hunting, Cooking Tips...
- How to cook wild duck...
- Perfect condiment for fish or fowl
- Fly Fishing In The Blogosphere...
- A word on farm-raised salmon
- Wild Salmon - What's On The Web On This Topic?
- Fishing gear
- Salmon on a plank
- Please Visit My Blog "Chef Keem's Squid Kitchen"
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- Check the weather in Alaska
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- Travel Alaska - the trip of a life-time!
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- Hello, dear visitor -
I didn't really like "salmon"...
...until I tasted wild silver, in Alaska!
Mind you, I still don't like "salmon" as it is sold outside of AK. Even though the shipping methods have improved dramatically over the past few years, there is no comparison to the quality of freshly caught fish. Some of our lodge guests like to eat their silver raw (sashimi), which saves me some work, but it is not necessarily the safest method of consumption. Potential tape worm infestation can make you very sick. See the links below for info on proper preparation of sashimi.
Fishing for silver...
Coho Salmon, as described by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game
General description: Adults usually weigh 8 to 12 pounds and are 24 to 30 inches long, but individuals weighing 31 pounds have been landed. Adults in salt water or newly arrived in fresh water are bright silver with small black spots on the back and on the upper lobe of the caudal fin. They can be distinguished from Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) by the lack of black spots on the lower lobe of the tail and gray gums; Chinook have small black spots on both caudal lobes and they have black gums. Spawning adults of both sexes have dark backs and heads with maroon to reddish sides. The males develop a prominent hooked snout with large teeth called a kype. Juvenile coho salmon have 8 to 12 parr marks evenly distributed above and below the lateral line with the parr marks narrower than the interspaces. The adipose fin is uniformly pigmented. The anal fin has a long leading edge usually tipped with white, and all fins are frequently tinted with orange.
Life history: Coho salmon enter spawning streams from July to November, usually during periods of high runoff. Run timing has evolved to reflect the requirements of specific stocks. In some streams with barrier falls, adults arrive in July when the water is low and the falls are passable. In large rivers, adults must arrive early, as they need several weeks or months to reach headwater spawning grounds. Run timing is also regulated by the water temperature at spawning grounds: where temperatures are low and eggs develop slowly, spawners have evolved early run timing to compensate; conversely, where temperatures are warm, adults are late spawners. Adults hold in pools until they ripen, then move onto spawning grounds; spawning generally occurs at night. The female digs a nest, called a redd, and deposits 2,400 to 4,500 eggs. As the eggs are deposited, they are fertilized with sperm by the male. The eggs develop during the winter, hatch in early spring, and the embryos remain in the gravel utilizing the egg yolk until they emerge in May or June. The emergent fry occupy shallow stream margins, and, as they grow, establish territories which they defend from other salmonids. They live in ponds, lakes, and pools in streams and rivers, usually among submerged woody debris-quiet areas free of current-from which they dart out to seize drifting insects.
During the fall, juvenile coho may travel miles before locating off-channel habitat where they pass the winter free of floods. Some fish leave fresh water in the spring and rear in brackish estuarine ponds and then migrate back into fresh water in the fall. They spend one to three winters in streams and may spend up to five winters in lakes before migrating to the sea as smolt. Time at sea varies. Some males (called jacks) mature and return after only 6 months at sea at a length of about 12 inches, while most fish stay 18 months before returning as full size adults.
Little is known of the ocean migrations of coho salmon. High seas tagging shows that maturing Southeast Alaska coho move northward throughout the spring and appear to concentrate in the central Gulf of Alaska in June. They later disperse towards shore and migrate along the shoreline until they reach their stream of origin.
Commercial fishing: The commercial catch of coho salmon has increased significantly from low catches in the 1960s, reaching 6.25 million fish in 1986. About half of the catch was taken in Southeast Alaska, primarily by the troll fishery.
Sport fishing: The coho salmon is a premier sport fish and is taken in fresh and salt water from July to September. In 1986, anglers throughout Alaska took 201,000 coho salmon. In salt water they are taken by trolling or mooching (drifting) with herring or with flies or lures along shore. In fresh water they hit salmon eggs, flies, spoons, or spinners. Coho are spectacular fighters and the most acrobatic of the Pacific salmon, and on light tackle provide a thrilling and memorable fishing experience.
Text: Steve Elliott
Revised and reprinted 1994
Chef Keem's Coho Cooking Clip
How to cook wild salmon
Bavarian Chef Keem demonstrates in his Alaska lodge kitchen how he prefers to cook wild salmon. Many guests have enjoyed this favorite preparation, over the last 10 years. You, too, can come fish for wild salmon at this choice location, and savor Chef Keem's American/Bavarian cuisine. Visit www.alaskaexpedition.com for more info.





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Lodges, Knives, Hunting, Cooking Tips...
- The Driftwood Lodge Experience
- Situated by the Tsiu River in SE Alaska, this outfitter offers great comfort, unbelievable fishing adventures, bear sightings galore, and a cuisine to come back to, year after year.
- Knives of Alaska
- The best hunting and fishing knives in the industry. Now available the new DiamondBlade line, the best knives ever made.
- How to make sashimi
- Guidelines for freezing and preparation
- Nutrition data
- Nutritional information for silver salmon
- Salmon recipes
- Nice collection of salmon preparations
- More recipes
- More recipes plus info on how to fillet and smoke fish
- Best fly shop in Houston, TX
- A beautiful store with everything you need for a great fishing or hiking trip.
How to cook wild duck...
Perfect condiment for fish or fowl
Drizzle some Agasweet flavored agave nectar on your salmon or duck, right before serving time. Add a gourmet touch that addresses all taste buds for a flavor explosion in your mouth!
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A word on farm-raised salmon
High levels of PCBs in farmed salmon
Farmed salmon a threat to health?
Salmon is high in the omega-3 fatty acids that scientists say are good for the heart and may even help protect against rheumatoid arthritis and other illnesses. And farm-raised salmon is easier to get than wild. It's $4 to $5 cheaper per pound and available year-round in all parts of the country. But headlines such as the ones above are making consumers wonder whether farm-raised salmon-which is just about all of the salmon you see in supermarkets-is such a great catch after all.
The headlines appeared recently when the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, DC-based not-for-profit environmental research organization, released a report after purchasing farm-raised salmon fillets at supermarkets across the US and testing them for certain contaminants. The group found the fish tainted with chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. Widely used in the 1950s and 60s in electrical and heating equipment, paints, plastics, rubbers, dyes, and many other substances, PCBs were banned in 1977 because of concern over their threat to health. The Environmental Protection Agency calls them a "probable human carcinogen." But they do not break down quickly or easily. An industrial by-product, they linger in water supplies (and air, soil, and food) long after they're used. According to the Environmental Working Group report, 70 percent of the salmon they looked at "were contaminated with PCBs at levels that raise health concerns."
Read more here
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Salmon on a plank
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Check the weather in Alaska
Fly fishing DVDs
Travel Alaska - the trip of a life-time!
Everyone should visit the last frontier, at least once. (You will come back!)
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Reply
- JaguarJulie JaguarJulie Aug 17, 2009 @ 8:11 am
- Chef, did you not return to the Alaska Lodge this Summer? Gosh, it just dawned on me that we are well in August and I don't recall seeing information that you are in Alaska for the Summer.
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Reply
- ElizabethJeanAllen ElizabethJeanAllen Jan 4, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
- I love to fish but I never caught one that size. I would love to visit Alaska. It is so open and wild...
Great lens
Lizzy
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Reply
- JaguarJulie JaguarJulie Nov 5, 2008 @ 11:23 am
- Ah, we have a chef friend Todd who cooks with planks all the time! Hoping to organize a group to make it up to your lodge to go fishing for coho salmon ourselves. Lunch!
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Reply
- awelldressedbullet awelldressedbullet Oct 27, 2008 @ 11:58 am
- Rick (that's Mr. Bullet) used to love fishing Salmon when we lived on Vancouver Island, and catching our own crab and shrimp off the government wharf! What memories and great eating! I think I must have cooked Salmon a million ways LOL - Kathy aka Pretty Bullet
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- ltraider ltraider Aug 25, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
- Great Bear video. Nice lens. Those fish look pretty big compared to the trout I catch in Alberta.
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