Our silver success continues to be the most productive to the north. Over the weekend, most of the fleet went to Hoonah Sound and enjoyed amazing weather and great coho fishing. The water was flat and with nothing but current to push the boats around, many of the captains chose to motor-mooch around Emmons Island. Most of the salmon were caught high in the water column, but every once in a while you would drive over a ball of bait. It didn’t matter where that bait ball depth was, but when you found it, you wanted to get your herring there quickly, because salmon were there and they were feeding. Most of the time they were silvers, but occasionally they were accompanied by kings. With it being calm, you could hear the excited yells from nearby boats, which was a sure sign that they were catching fish. Not only could you hear the excitement, but it was easy to hear silvers jumping on the end of someone’s line and the movement of humpback whales in the distance.

Halibut fishing has been successful while salmon fishing and soaking stink baits in deeper water. But, the real white meat pursuit has been for pacific cod. Our anglers are finding that these fish show up in large numbers and respond well to many techniques, including jigs. These tasty fish can run to double digits in weight and provide some fast-action fishing.

Some groups experienced fast days of silver and halibut fishing, with limits by 10 a.m. With time to spare, they ran to the Shark Hole to finish their day finding larger kings. Most of the groups that had this option found legal sized kings and a great finale to the day.

Everyone enjoyed the flat water, sunny skies, and new scenery over the weekend. This week’s forecast calls for a building ocean, so if you’re visiting this week, you can look forward to fishing an area you probably haven’t seen before.