Silver fishing can be red hot in Yakutat Bay.

When fish arrive in large numbers, anglers can mooch plug-cut herring, feel the bite, set the hook and do hand-to-hand combat with coho salmon. That’s an absolutely entertaining way to spend the day in Yakutat. When they aren’t bunched up and readily available for mooching, then trolling for silvers is very productive. Using downriggers, flashers and a variety of baits and lures, captains can find coho throughout the entire silver fishing season. 

Yakutat Lodge boat captains are on top of where the coho are feeding. A typical Yakutat-area coho weighs about 8 pounds, but far heavier fish are caught, especially the later you go into the season. It’s not uncommon for coho to put on significant weight at sea while they store up energy for their upcoming spawning mission. 

When the silver fishing is good, it’s not unusual to have multiple fish on at the same time, and that’s where the anglers working as a team can really increase the number of fish that get put in the box, especially when trolling. Between fighting the fish, pulling in the downrigger ball, netting the fish and re-deploying the line, there’s a lot to get done in a short period of time. And there may be multiple fish on at the same time. Yakutat Lodge captains are experts in this fishery and can tell you how to help in order to maximize your effectiveness as a silver fishing team.