Eating Salmon - Chinook?

Still waiting to put the first chinook in my boat, and as I start heading back out, when does the eating quality start to change? I wouldn't consider one of the black half dead ones coming up the rivers… (myself) but are they all pretty good through a certain time of the year, like for another month or so? Yes, I'm a newbie!

Perfect.. TY

August i wouldn't even worry about it probably. Id say end of September you might begin to see a zombie fish.

Typically, the next moth you'll catch good quality fish though? Is there a rough timeline when the change starts?

If the meat is still orangeish/pink, it's good. Yellow is good for smoking still, but white is just fertilizer. My rule is if it's black, I send it back. If it's silver through light brown, it's likely good. That said, there's black salmon with pink meat and silver salmon with white meat out there, so you never know 100%. One time I got one salmon up at Mishicot in November and it was dark as could be and it still had pink meat.

If you get one in the lake with a 'suntan' its still ok. The fish in the rivers aren't as pink fleshed for sure. If you think its maybe a bit off colored just smoke it. That's the way I look at it.