The fireworks go off too late in Sitka for most of us to enjoy. It doesn’t get dark until after 11 PM at this time of year, so it’s just about midnight on July 3 when the display gets started. The AU fleet enjoyed a great Independence Day on the water with our own kind of fireworks – limits of kings and halibut caught on dead calm seas. The fishing for king salmon continues to be very steady and appears to be building, but the bites are sometimes fairly short lived and the fish are more mobile than normal – here one minute, gone the next. We had about 30 minutes of excitement before tide change yesterday in one location, then it died. Thankfully, kings showed up in a few other spots once the tide started running again. Silvers are not consistently established yet, but don’t tell that to Mandi Braun who boated her limit of six in about an hour 3 days ago fishing with Captain Chuck. No one has been able to duplicate that feat so far, but it’s the time of year when silvers can move onshore in large numbers and stay. Baitfish and krill are plentiful inshore with lots of feeding whales around, all of which could drive a silver show. Still, yesterday we found only a few silvers mixed in with the schools of king salmon.