Alaska Troll-Caught King Salmon Steaks

Why Are Troll-Caught Salmon So Special?

Trollers are small fishing vessels operated by one or two people who fish with a number of lines and hooks baited with herring or artificial lures. Of all the commercial salmon fishing methods, trolling may be the least efficient from the standpoint of intercepting fish. High-seas trollers must search for fish in the open ocean; net fishermen by contrast, wait in areas where Salmon are known to school in the migratory route.

The volume of troll-caught fish is much smaller than that for net- caught fish. Troll-caught salmon generally make up less than 10 percent of the total Alaska catch of all species of salmon.

What they lack in quantity, troll-caught salmon make up in quality. No fish is treated with more care from the time it leaves the water until it is delivered to the retailer's door.

The fish is then gilled and gutted. Ice will be carefully packed in the body and head cavity and the fish will be laid on a layer of ice in such a way that the body cavities can drain freely. The surrounding ice will be arranged so that no fish comes in contact with another fish and so that all liquids drain away from the fish and into the vessel's bilge where it is pumped overboard. If the vessel has freezing capability, the fish will be blast-frozen much the way it is ashore, dipped in fresh water to form an ice glaze and placed carefully in the hold.