Skoke fish dump made the news

[MatthewHunter98]

People we gotta deal with

[huntnphool]

Normally they just dump them over the side of the boat in front of the boat launch, then nobody except those out in boats can see them sitting in the bottom of the bay. All there boats get pulled out with several 5 gallon buckets full of eggs, not a single fish in the boat.

[PolarBear]

Going out to my parents place out Kamilche Point yesterday there was a couple dozen chum laying on the side of the road by a tiny creek.  There is a small run of chum that come up that creek and I was one of the folks who put in the weirs and dikes for the fish as well as clearing out the crap.  Somebody just grabbed them and threw them in a pile to rot.

[j_h_nimrod]

The best tasting salmon (chum) i ever smoked was out of that region, to say the "flesh" is worthless makes you look stupid as well with the tribes . Skokes are one of the laziest tribes i've seen in my time in WA

The best road kill I ever ate came from Colorado, still makes it road kill. I have had some good smoked, spawned out, pink salmon too.  If the best smoked salmon you have had was chum then you must have a good brine, not had much smoked salmon, or got lucky with the fish you used. Saying I look stupid for the comment shows how little you know.

Speaking from a purely monetary/market standpoint there is very little worth to the flesh, that is just the way it is. From an overall food quality standpoint chum ranks somewhere near the bottom bringing 10-15% of king, coho, or sockeye and that is for well handled product, there are always exceptions though.  I know there have been great leaps in the troll caught chum market in SE Alaska, it is a great product that is caught before quality is overly effected due to physiological changes due to imminent spawning. Most chum available to the typical sport angler has already lost 30-50% of it's ocean bright quality, that is just the way much of the species is programmed. Of note as well, I worked at a hatchery where we put out totes of spawned out pinks for people to take, very few were taken, it is harder to give away fish then you think. We would not even try to give away chums, they were not considered food quality. 

Also there is no commercial market for eggs stripped into buckets on your run of the mill boats. Especially boats operated in the manner it sounds like they are operated in. Any reputable caviar company would not, could not, purchase eggs collected in such a manner. To have a processing permit required to sell eggs requires some pretty stringent qc/qa practices.

Think I am up to at least 3 cents offered by now...

[PolarBear]

A lot of the tribal guys have been dumping their catch whole because the price has dropped to nothing.  I know of 2 Squaxins who had over 1,000 pounds of chum that they dumped because when they called the fish buyer the price had dropped so low that it was no longer worth their time or effort.     Yeah, I know that souds about as stupid as it gets.  I got it straight from the horses patoot.   

[FC]

The best tasting salmon (chum) i ever smoked was out of that region, to say the "flesh" is worthless makes you look stupid as well with the tribes . Skokes are one of the laziest tribes i've seen in my time in WA

The best road kill I ever ate came from Colorado, still makes it road kill. I have had some good smoked, spawned out, pink salmon too.  If the best smoked salmon you have had was chum then you must have a good brine, not had much smoked salmon, or got lucky with the fish you used. Saying I look stupid for the comment shows how little you know.

Speaking from a purely monetary/market standpoint there is very little worth to the flesh, that is just the way it is. From an overall food quality standpoint chum ranks somewhere near the bottom bringing 10-15% of king, coho, or sockeye and that is for well handled product, there are always exceptions though.  I know there have been great leaps in the troll caught chum market in SE Alaska, it is a great product that is caught before quality is overly effected due to physiological changes due to imminent spawning. Most chum available to the typical sport angler has already lost 30-50% of it's ocean bright quality, that is just the way much of the species is programmed. Of note as well, I worked at a hatchery where we put out totes of spawned out pinks for people to take, very few were taken, it is harder to give away fish then you think. We would not even try to give away chums, they were not considered food quality. 

Also there is no commercial market for eggs stripped into buckets on your run of the mill boats. Especially boats operated in the manner it sounds like they are operated in. Any reputable caviar company would not, could not, purchase eggs collected in such a manner. To have a processing permit required to sell eggs requires some pretty stringent qc/qa practices.

Think I am up to at least 3 cents offered by now...

The only one talking about spawned out fish here is you, these fish were taken from salt water or water so close to the canal that it was mostly salt still.

If you haven't had smoked chum or didn't think of it as good then either you don't know anything about smoking fish or you haven't had much or something. Smoked chum isn't just good for chum, it makes some damn good smoked salmon period!

Interesting that you would mention a chum's flesh as being worthless, $8 a lb for smoked "keta" at Winco. Keta must be a relative of chum with those pink and green stripes I saw on it...

What do you suppose the skokes are doing with the egss they take from these fish? I've heard from numerous of them that they are selling them just as fast as they can.

[dscubame]

If there was demand (as in supply and demand) and a market worth the effort I am sure the bi-product (left overs) would not be dumped.  I am surprised how quick us outdoorsman in general forget that fish and game is a resource.  A renewable resource at that.

[mikesenescall]

Its one thing if the fish had gone bad and there was no use for them.

In Idaho along the Snake where I grew up steel head fishing, they take the Coho's that have spawned and died and take them high up where they use to spawn and dump hundreds, and thousands of Carcasses. They say 60-70% of the plants and trees have died off now because of no salmon returning to the small streams and creeks. The river needs dead fish to have a healthy surrounding area.
But like i said if there is no use and no other way, Its messed up and shouldn't be brushed off. We pay a *censored* ton to have the little fish that's left to be dumped in a puddle to rot.