Every year the salmon return to the Oroville hatchery. They enter and climb the ladder to the hatchery gathering tank. Eggs are taken from the fish and fertilized, incubated and hatched.
This year the fishing regulations were changed hopefully to allow the salmon to build back their populations. Salmon my friend is a luxury. At over $16.00 per pound it is real treat!
One of my friends is Native American, and every year he is allowed to go to the hatchery and retrieve the dead salmon after the eggs and sperm are removed. Yep, us poor folks get salmon! Woo hoo. Every once in awhile a few make into the back of the pickup with eggs intact.
Last year I was giving a few loose eggs and complained that they were hard to use and cure not being attached to the skeins. Well that will teach me! This year I received two zip loc baggies full of eggs. So now what? Where to lay them out to dry out a bit and get sprinkled with salt and borax a messy process. Genius that I can be sometimes LOL, I decided I could lay them out on racks in the oven – hence not have to worry about Annie and her lab appetite. Raw salmon is not good for dogs so I figure the eggs can’t be good either.
Now the best part of course is that we have enough salmon to last another year! This load we received about 30 big ones, the next load is coming soon. We all have made an event of this as our friend can no longer do it himself. So, we get truck loads from the hatchery, clean and fillet them and distribute them amongst friends.
This year lots of shiners and darker red meat than last year – yum great with the dill seasonings last night. I think I ate thirty dollars worth 😉
So, we now have pounds of fillet salmon in the freezer and some salmon egg bait