Fresh or Fresh Frozen Fish?

Fresh or Fresh Frozen? "Fresh Fish", when referring to any wild catch means "recently caught". After the fish is caught, it is impossible to improve on it's freshness. The key is to maintain it's freshness.

With many purveyors, the fresh fish is off loaded from the fishing vessel and taken to a refrigerated warehouse, then packed for shipment. Many times, this fresh fish has already been aboard the fishing vessel on ice for several days. By the time some of these fish reach their destination, they may be over a week old.

Many Seafood Companies send their catch to Asia to be processed. The fish are caught, frozen, shipped to a processing facility overseas, thawed, processed, then re-frozen for shipment. In this case, the fish are referred to as "twice frozen". If re-freezing is required after transport, the fish has now been frozen 3 times!

Fresh Frozen Fish, however, are processed within hours of arrival, blast frozen, and vaccum packaged. Once Frozen fish are literally only hours old when thawed for cooking. The key to freezing fish is to quckly lower the temperature. Slow freezing allows ice crystals to grow, which can rupture the meat. Upon arrival at their destination, the once frozen fish are still frozen or partially frozen and can be re-frozen without any discrenable loss of texture or flavor.

We specialize in Once Frozen pre-portioned Boneless Fillets. In our Salmon processing facility, the fish are split, filleted, de-boned, trimmed, and blast frozen within 24 hours of arrival. Our trimming operation removes the thinner tail section and trims the belly to provide more uniform fillet portions. Not only do the fillets cook more uniformly, but the simply look better on the plate! The tail portions & belly strips are then alder smoked with our 50 year old recipe.

For more information on Pacific Salmon, vist our website http://www.wildoceanfisheries.com/wildsalmon.html

Copper River Salmon

It's that time of year again! The first of the season Copper River King Salmon have arrived from Alaska!

What makes one salmon "better" than another? Does it matter?

Well, the answer is both yes...And no to a certain degree.

King (Chinook) Salmon are found from Oregon north through the Gulf of Alaska. There are thousands of streams in the King Salmon's habitat. Some are relatively quite flowing, while others have the type of white water falls that river rafters envy.

The Copper River in Alaska is 300 plus miles of raging crystal clear white water. The natural selection process has insured that Copper River Salmon returning to spawn are well equipped to make the journey up this river. The Salmon tend to be larger than many other returning fish, and have measurably higher oil content.

Two other great advantages these fish enjoy are:
1. A great human marketing department, which has extolled the virtues of these Salmon for the past 25 years.
2. The location of the Copper River to their natural pasture in the Gulf of Alaska makes the seaward side of their journey a couple weeks shorter than for other Salmon runs.

Great Fish, Great Marketing, First of the season.... but $36.99 a pound?

So, what about other King Salmon? Well, they are all big, the King Salmon is the largest salmon species and all are well endowed with high levels of omega 3 oils.

Are some King Salmon obviously superior? The short answer is ...yes. Let's look at other areas that have similar environmental conditions to the Copper River. These are some of the key attributes of the Copper River:
1. A long swim from the mouth of the river.
2. Swiftly flowing white water rapids.
3. Protected against human encroachment.

One place that stands out is the Rogue River in Southern Oregon! The wild rushing Rogue River begins near Crater Lake and runs through Grant’s Pass, Oregon before it empties into the Pacific Ocean 215 miles later at the Town of Gold Beach in southern Oregon. The majority of the river flows through a national park. The Rogue River is one of the original eight rivers included in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act due to its famous Steelhead and Salmon angling, challenging whitewater and extraordinary wildlife-viewing opportunities.

Rogue River King Salmon, like the Copper River Salmon are premium examples of the species as a result of unique environmental factors. The fish are larger and the oil content is measurably higher than other salmon runs. What's the main difference? The Rogue River King Salmon arrive about 3 weeks after the Copper River run begins. For more info on Rogue River Salmon, visit our website at: http://www.wildoceanfisheries.com/wildsalmon/rogueriverkingsalmon.html