by Lee Leschper
After pulling a vanishing act in 2016, silver salmon are back in force and hungry in Resurrection Bay and the surrounding waters this week.
What began as a trickle of first silvers a week ago has turned into a full blown flood of silvers since the July 4 holiday weekend for Seward anglers. While fish are not yet in the bay proper or near the harbor yet, the usual hotspots like Pony Cove are holding huge schools of hungry silvers.
We did a quick family trip Thursday and were blessed with bright skies, calm skies and limits of silvers around Pony Cove. Every boat, and there were many of them from 40-foot yachts to open river sleds, where hooking and landing plenty of fish. Our six anglers had limits within four hours, including a number of fish pushing 12 pounds. Like most of the other boats, we had success mooching with hoochies and strips of herring. Trollers were catching fish too, but frankly it wasn’t necessary to burn gas or time trolling.
The silvers stuffed with sea lances and anything imitating the slender bait fish should be effective. I did get my salmon on fly gear and a silver/green streamer and the bigger fish are a lot of fun on a 10-weight!
It it plausible that last year’s missing fish just stayed at sea another year and got bigger and fatter, in time for 2017? It’s fun to ponder, but right now it’s a lot more fun catching big silvers, so put Seward on your list of future destinations.
