The First Salmon of the 2014 Trip

Nothing, absolutely nothing, can rival the taste of the year’s first, just-caught-the-same-day, grilled salmon, cooked to perfection and basted with the “secret sauce”. It might have tasted all the more delicious for us having been skunked on a couple of fishing outings earlier in the month. I had grown cranky about fishing and not catching, so late one rainy morning the Capt. set out solo, armed with a positive attitude and hot cup of coffee. The bite was on. He hooked a fish in the first hour and returned with a big, beautiful bright king salmon. We don’t have a scale onboard, so stating a weight would only be a guestimate, but that beauty was 31.5 inches long, almost 8 inches from back to belly and 4 inches thick. Oh my, that’s a lot of good eats!

RL was super busy that day; catching the fish, cleaning the fish, cleaning up the skiff, cleaning the fish-cleaning station, grilling a small, thick chunk from one fillet, and finally cleaning up the grill. The man grinned through it all. Me? I prepared a small tail section for lox, and then later that day was an appreciative audience/dinner companion. (I won – he grilled another chunk of salmon the next day.)

(Sorry Mike, you left a few days too soon and missed a couple of great dinners.)