GETTING A JUMP ON SILVERS
By Hank Pennington©2008

Have you heard rumors about early silvers sneaking up road system rivers?

I can report firsthand that the stories are not rumors!

This spring’s late returns of kings and reds fooled me completely. I had anticipated a late run of silvers, too.

But after visits to several road system rivers, I’m here to tell you that early silvers are sneaking into each that I checked. And in surprisingly good numbers!

But as always with early silvers, seeing them and catching them are separate issues.

The smaller runs of pink salmon this year may be creating an illusion of more silvers than normal. It could be that silvers simply seem more numerous with fewer pink salmon to get in the way.

But whatever the explanation, a visit to your favorite silver salmon river will almost certainly yield sightings. Let’s see what I can do to help you turn sightings into hook-ups.

When silver salmon first enter rivers, two things are sure to happen. They’re going to be unpredictable. And they’re going to draw crowds.

I’ve found that one solution works well for both problems. Leave the river mouth! I’ll be the first to admit that silvers can be a scream when they first enter a river. But a crowd of anglers changes the picture entirely. You’re likely to catch more fish and enjoy yourself a lot more if you leave the river mouth to the crowds.

All it takes is a little bit of a walk, whether along the shoreline or out onto the tide flats in front of the river mouth. You won’t have to contend with tangled lines and you will usually find that the fish are lots more cooperative.

The keys to finding fish before they reach their home river are spotting them and being mobile.

Spotting the fish usually isn’t a problem because silver salmon jump frequently. You can see them jumping all over the bay, but the trick is to find them within casting range.

That’s where the mobility comes into play. You need to be able to walk, wade or float into casting range of the fish. And always remember that they are likely moving rather than still.

Let’s take a closer look at using the “jumpers” to help you find schools of fish.

In the first place, not all jumpers are created equally. Some of those big silver fish you see jumping are likely to be chum or dog salmon. That’s not a problem for me because I’m just as happy to catch dogs as silvers, but the difference is important.

Dogs usually don’t hit as well as silvers and often require entirely different fishing tactics. You won’t have much luck fishing to a school of dogs while thinking they’re silvers.

Telling the difference between the two is easy, once you know what to look for. In fact you can spot the difference from about as far away as you can see the airborne fish.

Chum salmon make long, low jumps, often in fast succession. And most importantly, they land flat on their sides.

Silver salmon on the other hand make big high jumps and land more or less upright. As I said you can see the difference from far away.

Out on the tide flats off rivers and along the shorelines away from the mouth, you need to get in front of the fish. And the further in front of them you can get the better.

In most cases the leading fish in a school are the most likely to hit, but they will hit better if your hook passes by them at an angle while moving forward and away from them. You might catch a fish casting straight out to sea in front of a school or even after a school has passed, but you’ll catch more if you can angle your cast to one side and past them as they approach you.

With conventional rods, silvers come into their own with spinners. They simply hit them better than other species of salmon.

Sure you can catch them with spoons too, but at the expense of shorter casting ranges spinners very often work better than spoons. You may not be able to cast quite as far with a spinner, but if you can get one in front of the fish they are more likely to hit a spinner than a spoon.

I tend to reserve my spoons for conditions where really long casts are called for and I simply can’t get close enough to the fish to reach them with a spinner. I might start casting to a school with a spoon, then switch to a spinner as they draw closer.

My favorite spinners are Vibrax and Mepps in a range of colors, but usually in the larger sizes. My favorite spoons are Krocodiles and Kastmasters in the larger sizes for more casting distance. Some folks are fond of Pixies, but I don’t think they cast as well or catch fish as well.

Fly fishing is also a hot prospect for silvers along the shorelines and on the tide flats. When using a fly rod though, streamers are the best choice over more familiar silver salmon flies. I prefer Clouser Deep Minnows or Surf Candy over all other patterns, but to understand why you need to know a little more about how to fish them.

Nine times out of ten silvers are going to want streamers that are moving fairly fast. Weighted flies like Clousers and Surf Candy stay deeper on fast retrieves than do unweighted flies.

These weighted streamers have another advantage. If a fly is sinking quickly in front of the fish, they are very likely to swoop down and grab it before you even have a chance to retrieve it. These strikes that come “on the drop” are a hallmark of silver salmon in saltwater and fresh, so you really have to watch the leader for a twitch as you wait for the fly to sink to the right depth.

If you can find silver salmon in the river mouth without too many people for your tastes, then by all means take a stab at catching them. They’re unpredictable from one day and one tide to the next, but when you manage to connect you’ll forget about all the unsuccessful casts you’ve made.

In the first few minutes after they enter a river, silvers are nuts! They race around at high speeds and jump frequently. It’s worth being on hand, even if you can’t get them to strike.

And most people don’t get the strikes because they don’t really understand what they are seeing.

For one thing, all those wakes you see are at least a couple of lengths behind the fish! If you cast to the wakes, your lure or fly is actually landing behind the fish.

Instead of casting to the wakes, cast two or three body lengths ahead of them. It is a great help if you can cast downstream and across the approaching fish, just as I described for fishing in saltwater.

Especially with spoons and flies, be prepared to make really fast retrieves too. Those crazy fish are moving fast in the first place, but they’ll take the most interest in offerings that move faster than they do. The same spoons and flies that work in saltwater will work fine, but I’ll add heavily weighted Karluk Flash Flies to the list of top producers once the fish are in the river.

Spinners don’t have to be moving as fast as spoons or flies, but they do need to be cast well ahead of the fish so that they can see them in time to decide to strike.

Once the silvers move upstream beyond the river mouth, strategies have to change dramatically because the fish behave so differently. But it I think I’ll save those details for a future column.

In the meantime, shouldn’t you be out on the water rather than sitting at home?

Hank Pennington©2008 is on our panel of expert outdoor advisors.

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Thanks

Jesse Glamann