TOPIC:

Being an old walleye fisherman I always harvest the cheek meat behind the eyes. Does anyone ever do this with salmon?

I haven't tried. I did it once with walleye and didn't think it worth the effort.

I do make walleye wings or coho wings when cleaning fish for myself.

Rather than explain go to youtube: and watch the 40 second video.

You can cut the "wings" off after filleting the meat just as easily as doing it first.

As a past charter guy I have had people ask me to do it and have. Most of the time it is like BN said more time and wanting to turn and burn not something that I regularly would do. Personally, yes I have done it and would say with most of the ways I cook Salmon it does not make up for the added time. Meaning I am cooking fillets on the grill or in the smoker so a small chunk of meat not much of a use. If I where to bake them I normally will cut the fish into smaller pieces to coat and bake so that would be along the same line. The walleye cheeks would get used more than the Salmon cheeks in my kitchen just based on the way I prepare the different fish. The cheeks are a prime piece of meat and I bet after a season of saving them in a seperate container there should be a fairly decent meal of cheek meat and already in bite size pieces.

I put the cheeks in a plastic bag and freeze them until I have enough to utilize. They work well in a chowder. Thanks for the replies.

little Bill I'll be ready to share some of that chowder with you. We really haven't cut cheek meat from the salmon but always cut them out on the walleye. When we first started doing it out on lake erie we saw some fellas that really had it down pat. They had taken table spoons and run one edge of the spoon across a grinder to sharpen the edge and simply scooped out the cheek meat with it. Really was neat watching how easy it worked. Now we have one also.

That spoon idea sounds interesting I might have to experiment. Thanks for the input.