KODIAK – Beginning in mid-August and continuing through September, waves of coho (silver) salmon arrive off the coast of Kodiak Island, Alaska, to fatten up before entering the rivers to spawn. Vast schools of eulachon (a species of smelt) are their main food source during this time of year. So oily are the eulachon that they are also known as “candlefish” since they can be lit and burned like a candle once dried.

Fishing reports that I read a week before my arrival on August 25 said that nice-size silvers were being caught once you figured out to get through the pinks (a less desirable type of salmon). Trolling near the well-known hotspot Buoy 4, it didn’t take long before we hauled in our first salmon. It was a pink, as was the next one that weighed approximately seven pounds. We would also catch a couple of chum salmon which, although beautifully marked and good fighters, are even less sought after than pinks as table fare. Chum salmon are nicknamed “dog salmon” because Alaskans feed them to their sled dogs.

Once we got into the silvers, the action was fast and furious. Each of the fish tipped the scales at 10 to 12 pounds. All five of us landed two silvers before the bite cooled off.

Normally we would have moved on to halibut next, but a moratorium for those fish had recently been instituted on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. If we had been allowed to target them, it would have added another 25 pounds of meat to my fish box that day. Over the years, I’d soured on them anyway because it is back-breaking work reeling in the often 50-pound flatfish off the bottom of the seafloor 200 feet below.

Much more manageable are the rockfish. There are over 30 different species of rockfish found in Alaska. The delicious white meat is firm and sweet. Black rockfish are the most common and are ready biters. We lowered our circle hooks baited with fish flesh and a herring then only had to wait a minute or so until one was on the line. There were a few quillback and dusky rockfish in the mix.

Perhaps the most striking of all rockfishes is the yelloweye. Bright orange in color, they don’t reach maturity until they are 22 years old and can live to be 122. The Alaskan record for a yelloweye rockfish was caught in Prince William Sound, measured 42 inches long, and weighed 42.4 pounds.

The one I reeled in went about 10 pounds and represented the biggest rockfish I’d ever caught. A fellow fisherman hooked a couple of tiger rockfish which look like the yelloweye except have red stripes running down its sides. A 20-pound lingcod wrapped up the day’s fishing.

Happy Hooker Charters offers fishing trips departing from St. Paul Harbor in the city of Kodiak. Comfortable lodging and fine dining can be found at the Best Western Kodiak Inn across the street from the harbor.