Pink Salmon Year

Around here on odd years, Washington experiences a heavy return of pink salmon (also known as humpies). Currently, these salmon are making their way back to their spawning streams. Apparently, this is a record year for humpies. The other morning, we watched 11 seiners fishing out in front of our beach-we've never seen this before, definitely a first!

My uncle went fishing, caught his limit that morning, and was so kind to share some fillets with us. Many people turn their nose up to pink salmon. We actually like it. In my opinion, it is best to eat the day you catch it, since this particular salmon does not freeze well. My favorite thing though, is to smoke it, and that's what I did with these. Once the fish is filleted, I remove the rest of the bones, and cut into 2-3" wide pieces. I lay the pieces in a 9 X 13" glass baking dish and sprinkle a mixture of 1/3 Cup salt and 2/3 Cup brown sugar over all the pieces. This mixture turns into a brine that I leave on the fish overnight.
In the morning, I rinse the fish very well, and pat dry. The pieces of fish are now ready to put on the smoker's rack.
The rack then gets inserted into the smoker and the fish smokes with mesquite chips for a few hours.

We like our smoked salmon a little soft, so I only smoked this fish approximately 3 hours. Thicker fish would take longer.

This batch turned out really well. I used a few pieces for smoked salmon orzo pasta - it was so tasty!

My hubby and I are looking forward to fishing with my brother Labor Day weekend. I have my white flasher and hot pink hoochie combination set-up and ready to go! Oooh... now, that does sound strange...really, that's what you use to catch humpies... hehehe