Low Tech Silvers 6

With a silver run that's triggered more than a few suicide watches here in Craig the past few weeks the phrases "You can't miss!", and "They were everywhere!" more than jossled my interest when I heard them. Two of the fishing nuts that stay in the RV park that we call home during our Southeast Alaska summer had bagged the saltwater salmon fishing altogether to fish a lake that they raved was "loaded" with chrome brite, sea lice-laden coho.

I've been on my share of wild salmon chases, several in the past week that I'd just as soon forget, but this one didn't involve burning several hundred dollars worth of fuel and it was so simple that if the fish weren't there it wouldn't really matter. The guys were good fisherman and didn't share intel with just any-old-body, so today I grabbed the $25 dollar spinning outfit that our fish cutter Tim's four year old son uses to catch pogies, cod, herring, and anything else that will bite from our dock along with a handful of Vibrax spinners and off I went to check out this lake.

The lake has a USFS cabin on it and two low-sided jon boats were supposedly available to ferry folks who rented the cabin.

After an hour drive, half of which was on a spine-compressing, potholed mountain road I arrived at the lake and sho'nuf…there was a ten foot pram half full of rainwater waiting at a little dock. A small bucket was laying in the bottom of the partially sunken vessel and I didn't hesitate to begin sloshing the water from it.

A rig with Ohio plates was parked in the small lot and before too long I could see them paddling their canoe peacefully around the lake casting spinners. There wasn't a breath of wind and it had been years since I'd heard silence so deafening.  Fish or no fish, this was awesome!

Standing in the calf deep water in the boat I stopped briefly to take in the serenity of it all just in time to see a white-bellied coho rocket from the water, coming down with a "Fa-lop!" on it's side. Another one jumped, and then another…sum bitch…I need to get the water out of this boat NOW!

So much for ambience. I cranked up the RPM's on the human bilge pump, quickly removing enough of the water to make the craft lake-worthy and ran to the Suburban to grab Cael's dock rod.

The silvers were jumping seventy five yards from the dock and I hurriedly pulled on the little oars to join them. One, two, three casts and WHAMO! A chromer ten pound buck blasted the #5 Vibrax and threw water everywhere. This wasn't the typical roll-up-in-the-leader-and-choke-itself-out silver. This puppy was tearing it up, ripping line off the Okuma spinning reel and jumping wildly around the lake.

Still no wind and the only sound was the clanging of my spinner and the spu-looshing of water every time the silver would catch air. This was cool! 

Well, the hot silver played possum just long enough for me to think the fight was over, laying on it's side waiting for the inevitable. He was as good as in the freezer.

I grabbed the line and squared up the sweet spot on his noggin' with the back of my fish knocker and low-and-behold he shot off like a rocket and spit the darned hook, spraying water on me in the process. Ug!

For the next hour I would cast in the general direction of jumpers, only to have them quit jumping…and then start jumping behind me. Some of them would chase the Vibrax all the way to the boat and then turn away. Why didn't I bring along some WD-40? That always works when they do that.

Even though I was prepared for this, I was beginning to wonder if the first fish was just a fluke and the bulk of the coho the guys had been hammering days before had moved on upstream. I kept flogging.

The air was balmy, at least for Alaska, and the lakes surface didn't have a trace of a ripple on it. When I hooked the first silver the lake had a small ripple. Hmmmm!

Two hours later and still nothing to show for it except a few chasers and a nice day on the water. I could see a squall across the lake moving my way and within ten minutes it was beginning to rain and the wind was picking up. I rowed back across the cove and set up for another drift, hoping the wind chop would trigger the bite.

That was the ticket! In the next four drifts I hooked ten silvers and landed five of them. All of the fish were between six and ten pounds and fought exactly like the first fish I lost. 

No side-scanning sonar, babbling VHF radios, or stubborn kicker motors to worry about. I was in a loaner skiff on a remote lake in Alaska catching hot silvers on a cheapo spinning rod by myself and having a ball!

With one more fish to go to get my limit of six silvers a white USFS Dodge pickup pulled down the ramp and a gal hollered across the water to me. "Hey buddy…we need to use the skiff to get to our cabin so we can cut some firewood."

"Ok…just one more cast," was my impish reply.

Another chrome missle slashed at my spinner just before I lifted it from the water on that "last cast" and hard as it was I put the rod down and rowed the pram to the ramp.

The two gals that worked for the Forest Service were nice as can be and apologized for hussling me off the water, but they had to get a mess of firewood chopped up that afternoon for a group that was using the cabin the next day. I politely sloshed the remaining bloodied water from the bottom of the boat before they loaded chainsaws, splitting mauls and equipment into the craft.

As I snapped a quick photo of my catch on the nearby beach I watched in admiration as one of them straight-armed the fifteen horsepower Mercury outboard onto the back of the boat. These Alaskan women are alright!

I ran my fish down to our dock back in Tough-Town to fillet them up and met one of our running mates as he was pulling in to drop off their days catch for Tim to process. They had ran ten miles offshore and managed to catch only four cohos.

Today was a good day!