well i learned my lesson...

Well today I wanted to do something different than just go to lake meridian to fish... so I made a plan to go out on the sound... and mother nature and old man current made me their play toy... and after shy of an hour tryin to troll for salmon on a minus tide I decided to throw in the towel since I was tired of fightin the current that was tryin to pull me towards Tacoma... then I got home and got some kokanee filets ready to smoke tomorrow, got them done and go to fillet some I had to freeze whole (took them out the day before to defrost in the fridge) and learned a valuable lesson AGAIN... bleed fish you are going to freeze whole because from either not bein bled or some other unfortunate circumstance the meat had gone soft the ribs pulled away after the fish was cut open and this pissed me off a bit cause it was a limit of 5... so two lessons learned today... ohh joy... hopefully those fillets I prepped will be delicious after a nap in the smoker

Ohh speaking of naps has anyone else fell asleep on their yaks? I did on Friday after I caught some kokanee... just unhooked the front straps for my seat and rested my head on my small cooler and ended up takin like a 10min nap out on meridian woke up and was like 'wow did that just happen!?' it was glass calm though it was a perfect situation

Nice report...bleeding fish is a must if you want to retain quality product.
As for taking naps in the kayak. I haven't done that but I do get sleepy during gentle swells while fishing the salt.

The ribs pulling off the bellies isn't due to just not bleeding the fish. When you see belly burn like that there is a good chance the fish got warm with the guts still inside.
For all salmonoids you will have a much better product if you bleed then gut then ice your fish.

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