Fish Prep 101

I grew up in an environment where fishing, clamming, crabbing, etc. was a common occurrence.  I’m familiar with cleaning fish and shellfish.  So, that being said, I’ve got to say I have never seen internal bruising in salmon until today.  And neither has my husband.  Normally my husband will go fishing multiple times during the summer months.  This year, for several reasons, he didn’t go out very much.  And he wanted to smoke salmon so he went to a local store to pick up some salmon.  And every whole fish he brought home and cut open had these major bruising issues.  At first, I wasn’t sure what it was.  I couldn’t see any parasites, so I ruled that out.  And after some research, I located some photos of salmon with the same problem.  Internal bruising.  And you can’t smoke salmon that has bruising.  Generally, if a fish has bruising, it’s not likely it was caused by other fish/seals/orcas because all of those creatures would leave external damage.  And most salmon wouldn’t survive anyway.  Which leads me to think the people catching these salmon are really causing major damage in the way the fish are being handled.  They might know how to fish, but they don’t know squat about maintaining fish quality before docking.  What a nightmare.  If I were the manager of the store, I wouldn’t do business with them anymore.  But that’s just me.