I backed up on the sand, heart racing, shimmering line in front of me taut, my knuckles white around the reel. “Back up, back up!” my friend Pip called, even though I could barely hear anything as I focused solely on the thrashing salmon in the water. Thrashing, then gone. I’d lost it. My first hooked salmon of the season, my first hooked salmon ever or since. Gone.
“No worries. It happens to us all,” I think Pip said.
Then her rod bent towards the sea and she reeled and backed her boots out of the water and onto the sand where soon a gorgeous salmon lay flipping at her feet. (Or at least this is how it oh-so-elegantly happened in my head.)
I wanted to blame it on the barbless hook (required here on Puget Sound so that you don’t damage the wild salmon you must release) or the rod or my tired arms but it didn’t matter; dinner was gone. I’ve been fishing a couple of times since but haven’t even gotten a nibble. I’d like to think that whatever fish we don’t catch the Orcas are eating. We weren’t trying to catch the kind the Southern Resident Orcas eat (King/Chinook), but details, details.
One day I hope to catch a salmon off the shores of this island. In the meantime, I buy salmon from Cape Cleare Fishery in Port Townsend because they actually know what they’re doing and they do it well. They catch the fish in Alaska with poles and lines, which is the most sustainable way to go. I order 10 pounds at a time and a cheerful and very fit woman named Pamela bikes several coolers over on the ferry to Whidbey. How cool (and oh so crunchy) is that?
It is also the best tasting salmon I’ve ever had. This time I got a whole Coho Salmon to feed the family. I harvested veggies and herbs from the garden and baked it all up. Here’s how it went:
I thinly sliced half an onion and a fennel bulb on a mandolin. I chopped a couple cloves of garlic and a couple of peppers along with a handful of sage, parsley and thyme. The sliced lemon was the only thing not from our garden.
Salmon from Cape Cleare
Here’s the whole four pound fish. They delivered it without a head so if you’re a fan of sucking down fish eyeballs, too bad.
Pour a bit of olive oil into the cavity and on the skin. Sprinkle all with salt and pepper.
Stuff salmon with lemons, fennel, onions, peppers, and herbs.
Tie up the fish with cooking twine.
I had some extra fennel and onions so I surrounded the fish with the veggies to crisp em up.
Cook it all at 425 degrees for about 40 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.
Snip off the twine, surround it with the fennel fronds, and serve it up.
We roasted up some carrots and made a kale Caesar and green bean and beet salad to round out the meal.
