Anybody want a chum salmon? That’s what local gillnetters have been asking as the packers’ price for chum continues to dip. This week, the lowly dogs were fetching only 8 or 12 cents per pound, an average of about a dollar for a 10-pound salmon.
Even after imposing rock-bottom purchase prices, processors are limiting their purchases of chums.
Desperate fishermen unable to sell extra chum have resorted to giving salmon away at the docks to keep themselves inside a law that prohibits destroying or throwing away fish. Others are using them as halibut bait. Rumors of chum dumping on the fishing grounds, in violation of the law, are rampant.
At this point an entrepreneur might say, find a way to sell chum and the world will beat a path to your door. Some Haines residents are trying.
Gillnet skipper Mike Saunders has created a local “salmonburger” using chums and just enough sockeye to lend some color.
Saunders is selling 70 pounds of his secret recipe burger to two local restaurants, where it’s receiving generally favourable reviews.
“We’re just trying to create a market, plus make a little money. There’s all these chums out there. What are you going to do with them?” said Kate Hoag, a partner in Saunders’ company.
Customers at the Haines Senior Center gave mixed reviews to Saunder’s burger. “Some said they wouldn’t feed it to their dog, but I loved it,” said senior Nowyta Badgley. Enter cook Betty Miller said the burgers aren’t bad but could use a little flavour, a criticism repeated by tourist Chris Phenipimon, who was eating one this week at a Fort Seward restaurant. He described the flavour as “flat” and “unknown” and suggested adding Rosemary to the ground mixture.