Why Copper River King Salmon Is So Expensive | So Expensive Food | Business Insider

keep going keep going often referred to as the wagyu of salmon copper river king salmon can cost up to one hundred twenty dollars per pound like retail price fifteen hundred two thousand dollars right here that's six times as much as other wild salmon and 10 times more than farmed salmon this salmon is extremely rare to come by for fishers in cordova alaska it means spending entire days in dangerous waters using life-threatening equipment and spending thousands of dollars on a permit all with the serious chance of coming back to port empty-handed so is copper river king salmon worth the challenge and why is it so expensive king salmon also called chinook salmon is one of the five species of wild pacific salmon swimming through the alaskan waters the copper river king is the largest and most nutritious of them all the color of the copper salmon is just so vibrant it's such a deep deep bread and it's like one of those things when you see it it's very obvious that's a copper river salmon and it just tastes so buttery it's amazing kyle and his crew set sail in the early hours of the morning from the cordova harbor it will take them two hours to reach the delta of the copper river king salmon will stay in the copper river delta for only three to six weeks kings are the first wild salmon of the season and the start of the season is unpredictable although it roughly always falls around mid-may fishers won't know it's time to set sail until less than a day before we typically have such a short window to fish it's really important for me to be able to make quick decisions the unpredictable outcome of each fishing run not only affects the price of each catch but also builds up the excitement that's insane that's insane the location is the first challenge for kyle and his crew the delta of the river is very large and not a lot of salmon swim in that area so fishers like kyle have to take their boats to shallow waters it's extremely dangerous to fish for a cop river king salmon because they like to hang out in shallow waters and when you're fishing in that area you're a lot more exposed to mother nature you know the waves are crushing they're breaking on top of you and you're a lot more susceptible to capsizing your boat um we're about to pick our anchor and then we're gonna make a set once the anchor is set the chances of catching anything are slim king salmon makes up only a small percentage of the salmon in the copper river ninety percent is sockeye that makes kyle's job extremely difficult aside from that local laws require he uses specific nets called gill nets they're hung vertically to catch the fish by their gills gill netting is an extremely effective way to catch these fish because each net is hand built and completely customized so you know for copper river king salmon we use a lot a lot larger mesh size around six inches so the smaller fish swim right through it and you know when we are able to locate a king salmon they fit perfectly in our net give me a second i'll explain a second i should have pulled him over the bow ah so what had happened was you know so king salmon they're they're really large fish and they typically don't really get stuck into the net they usually just wrap up um so it's imperative that you have a dip net to catch them in case they pop out and what had happened there was as the first king of the day i was super super excited i had the net underneath and it had already peaked and started to crown over the bow roller and i uh i tried to reach forward to pull it over but because i popped off and i was only holding the dip net with one hand and because the king was so large it overpowered me and ended up swimming out but the same features that make gill nets such an effective way to catch king salmon are also what make using them so dangerous there are a lot of hazards and dangers using the gill net specifically on deck for the crew just because we are using hydraulic equipment to send the net out into the water there's a lot of loose mesh that goes flying out so any you know loose strings from a hoodie or shoelaces all those are really prone to getting snagged missed catches are common here in the copper river even after spending his whole day out on the boat kyle has a serious chance of coming back empty-handed that makes the fish that he does catch even more prized yeah go go oh so we just caught this toad of a cop river king salmon this one probably weighs uh probably 30 35 pounds um and for like retail price we you know this goes like 1500 2 000 right here and um just for a size comparison this is uh a copper river stock i salmon yeah it's got a darker mouth and then also on top of the spine you'll see it's got spots along the line and also nice silver um with spots on the tail as well so this one right here is probably 22 pounds gross it's a very beautiful um very fatty copper river king salmon um very excited that we got the first the first one on board the day's getting started and uh looking forward to catching many more the huge size of the copper river king salmon is due to its migration wild salmon are born in freshwater streams like the copper river and then migrate to the ocean as juveniles after spending most of their lives at sea they returned to their home to spawn for the kings returning to the copper river this means enduring a 300 mile long journey against a seven mile per hour current swimming between glaciers and gaining 3 600 feet in elevation cooperative salmon have the most intense salmon migratory route out of any salmon in the world because of that long journey home it has a huge impact on the flavor of the copper salmon because the moment the salmon enter you know they go from the ocean the sea water and they hit that fresh water of the copper river salmon their body automatically changes into reproductive mode so up until that day that they hit that fresh water they're just feeding and building up fat to make that 300 mile long journey go go go go nice thousand kings are set to return home to the copper river this year thirteen percent below the ten year average of forty six thousand out of these thirty nine thousand fisheries are only permitted to catch less than half to ensure enough salmon make it up the river for future generations kyle is only allowed to go out once enough salmon have escaped the fishing ground and have started to make their way up the copper river the catch limit is different every day it can be reached at any moment and when it is kyle has to stop fishing and return to port immediately but he still needs to bring home enough to keep his business running and fishing in the copper river bears high costs if i came back empty-handed it would cost me you know it could be anywhere from 300 to 600 in fuel and probably a chunk of my pride for a company like kyle's fuel can top twelve thousand dollars a season but that's still significantly lower than the cost of a permit to commercially fish in these waters which is two hundred fifty thousand dollars when i first started commercial fishing i did not save any of my cash for myself just because i had taken on so much debt to buy into the fishery i couldn't afford to save any of the salmon for myself i eat salmon very regularly now all right come in come come okay yeah come come oh go go oh my god that's insane last out of the day we just brought in seven cop river kings insane yeah dude that was bonkers once kyle returns to port the fish must be filleted and packaged as soon as possible to preserve its nutritional value it takes us about a week to get our salmon to consumers the moment our fishermen return to port we'll fillet portion vacuum pack and flash freeze for a minimum of three days so then that way the seafood is consumable for sushi is considered sushi grade they're so fatty it's so oily it's hard to hold onto them they keep slipping kyle sells his king salmon to fine dining and sushi restaurants but also directly to customers across the country shipping out of alaska can get very expensive because of its remote location it costs him 65 to ship a five pound box of salmon from cordova to new york due to an increase in demand the price of king salmon has slowly gone up over the last five years a pound of copper river king salmon is now going for a hundred to one hundred twenty dollars although bigger fish sell for more huge king salmon are getting harder to come by a 2020 study found that in the last 60 years salmon in alaska have been getting smaller especially kings since 1960 king salmon have lost 8 percent in body length streams are warming earlier in the year and salmon are making their migrations at a younger age and smaller size there's also competition with other fish populations caused by hatcheries releasing the fish they produce into the sea in the long term this drop in size affects the salmon's commercial value the transport of nutrients egg production and especially for king salmon it reduces the supply for rural communities salmon and seafood in alaska is more than just like more than a job it's very deeply rooted into our traditions we have very many rural communities in alaska that rely on these wild salmon runs as like their only source of protein so you know they don't have you know some of them they don't have access to grocery stores so it's really important that we have these sand runs returned for them you

Channel: Insider Business

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Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, insider, copper river, king salmon, salmon, so expensive, so expensive food, food, food insider, alaska, fish, fishing, glaciers, swim, water, ocean, fresh, freshwater, seafood, sushi, fishers

Id: loQWJaa1_hM

Length: 12min 30sec (750 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 26 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/reading_alot]

yum!!! I love salmon!