The commercial king salmon opener for trollers began on July 1. Historically, this has caused some trepidation that our king fishing would get pounded into the ground. But, for the past five seasons, we’ve seen precious little impact. The areas we fish and the areas they fish seem to overlap less and less. July 1 and 2 this year have produced excellent catches of kings and halibut. The massive influx of silvers that we saw for three or four days in late June moved outside our go-to gravel flat at The Cape. Long drifts in deep water with cohos feeding shallow have produced near limits for many boats. Halibut and rockfish catches are excellent and the seas are calm. The fireworks over Sitka happened at midnight on the third with clear skies and beautiful display. It’s too light out at this time of year to start any earlier. Those of us who fished on the 4th had to forego the sights, but we’ll create our own fireworks on the water.