Hope you get to try it some day, esp. one you caught yourself.
The second time we fished Alaska, it was out of Sitka. It was a different zone with different catch limits. So we only got one halibut each, and two kings. There were lots of pinks and silvers, then the crew took us to a deep water (300+ feet) area in the Sound to fish for rock fish. We caught a lot of those too. Best of all, the other charter people (again three others) did not want their rock fish or pinks and silvers, and gave them to us. It cost us close to $100 to ship all that home but it was so worth it. As you said, the salmon is different when it's been frozen but fresh like that it still beat anything you can get at the store, esp. farmed salmon. We had over 100 lbs of fish. I ended up donating 30 lbs or so of the salmon to our local food pantry. The charter ppl package it in the size you want (half lb., one lb., two, etc.) so the filets were all individually flash-frozen.