[asveikau]

I start to wonder if he might be loosely summarizing the story in a way that makes it more amusing.

Like maybe there was a card explaining it and he either threw it away without reading or left it out of the story. Maybe the parallels to The Godfather are something he thought of later.

Or maybe you're right, and whoever sent it was kinda dopey and thought a fellow Washington State person would immediately get the reference, and he didn't.

[sjwright]

Like when you say dead fish, it sounds bad. But consider the alternative—a gift of live salmon would be far more annoying and less convenient for most people.

[duncanawoods]

That is a fascinating and disturbingly abusive prank - make someone responsible for killing a huge fish. What would they do - take it to a vet or a fishmonger or find a hammer? Call wildlife services for what you would buy in the supermarket the next day? It would be a pretty weird position to be in.

[nsxwolf]

It would have been packaged in a way that should have been obvious to anyone "This is a gift of fine food", so I find it hard to believe he would have actually perceived it as some kind of threat, except in a kind of tongue in cheek way.

But sometimes it's important to lie a little bit to make a story better.