When you aren't just telling someone what they want to hear, regardless of the truth.
When you're not praising someone to gain their favor or approval.
SImilar to: 'Not blowing smoke up your ass.'
Possible sexual reference, 'to smoke' is often used as a euphemism for performing oral sex, 'salmon' and other fish are often used to indicate a vagina.
Not trying to smoke your salmon, but I completely agree with you.
I just think that's a great idea, else i would have disagreed and called you an idiot.
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. Penguin Books,1992. p. 38)