Fishing around

Tyler Takeda/The Madera Tribune

Garlic brown sugar salmon is a great way to half your salmon with a sweeter glaze, and give it some extra flavor.

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The one and only salmon I ever caught happened to get away, even though, after a long time of fighting it (in Monterey Bay), I got it right up against the boat. It was a beautiful Chinook, also known as a King, and it looked to be somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds. But it went underneath the boat, and nothing worked to get it out from there.

The leader line finally snapped and away the fish went. It had earned its freedom, after having jumped completely out of the water at least three times, and inspired me to go through my list of bad words I had heard over the years as I struggled mightily to reel it in. None of my commercial fisherman friends that had their boats docked near ours had caught any salmon that day, so, it would have been kind of cool for me, my first time out for salmon, to come aboard the dock with that huge fish and an ear-to-ear grin. But it was not time for my vanity to shine, and that’s okay. Maybe that fish lived on to produce more salmon to catch (or try to) another day.

For dinner tonight, though, our salmon fillets are coming frozen from Sam’s Club. If you love salmon, here are a few recipes to try.